


Ten Minutes of Bliss

by mossologist



Category: Killjoys (TV)
Genre: Bad Haircuts, Bad Jokes, Brief body horror, Brief injury detail, Brief torture scenes, Canonical Pining, Case Fic, D'avin is Snarky, Dutch is Sad, Explicit Sexual Content, Fancy is an asshole, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Lovers to Friends, Medical Procedures, Mystery, Plays fast and loose with canon, Plot, Pree is Pree, References to PTSD, Sexy Times, Slow Burn, Team Awesome Force Kicking Ass, Thriller, Torture, Warrant Fic, bad language, john is gone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-06-17 05:58:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 56,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15454851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mossologist/pseuds/mossologist
Summary: იტიEight minutes left if you count the time they wasted.Ten seconds to survive in deep space.However they look at it, they can’t deny they are falling together through gravity—Stuck in each other’s orbit for as long as it takes.Enough is enough.Tonight is Reckoning Night.Tonight, they love for love’s sake.იტიWhat Dutch and D'avin got up to while Johnny was away.A lot has changed since their dalliance in Utopia, and while John is off finding himself, it is getting harder and harder for Dutch and D'avin to resist each other. Especially as Dutch's obsessive search for a Hullen artefact threatens to tear them both apart. This is the story of nine times they wanted each other, but couldn’t (or wouldn’t) go through with it, and the one time they did.NOW COMPLETE!





	1. The Goldilocks Effect

**Author's Note:**

> Soundtrack for this fic can be found on Spotify playlists under 'Ten Minutes of Bliss'. Each track corresponds to the numbered chapter.
> 
> 1\. 'The Wolves (Reprise)' ~ Dustin Tebbutt  
> 2\. 'Taken' ~ Young Summer  
> 3\. 'Bad Weather' ~ Superhumanoids  
> 4\. 'Everything Trying' ~ Damien Jurado  
> 5\. 'Crash and Burn' ~ Angus & Julia Stone  
> 6\. 'Game' ~ Mating Ritual  
> 7\. 'Hide' ~ Little May  
> 8\. 'The Longer I Run' ~ Peter Bradley Adams  
> 9\. 'As Much as I Ever Could' ~ City and Colour  
> 10\. 'Like Real People Do' ~ Hozier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dutch takes some time off to lick her wounds after the events of 'Enemy Khlyen' (episode 1.09) and hangs out at the Royale for a while, but in doing so she discovers a new vulnerability. Lucy's not the only one who misses D'av's presence on board, but is inviting him back purely for the sake of the mission, or does Dutch have more personal motives?
> 
> Song for this Chapter is 'The Wolves (Reprise)', by Dustin Tebbutt.

* * *

 

იტი

 _“There was once a little girl whose curly hair shone brightly. She was a sad romp, and so restless that she could not be kept quiet at home, but must needs run out and away, without leave.”_ —Southey

იტი

 

John returns with Pawter quicker than expected. She looks at D’avin first, with a question behind her eyes, and then to Dutch, who is starting to run hot and cold with the shock. 

“Who did this to you—what happened?” Pawter doesn't wait for permission to scissor off Dutch’s trousers.

“Turin shot me.” Dutch doesn’t care who knows it. Beads of sweat glisten on her forehead.

“Your boss?” Pawter frowns, sorting equipment rapidly. She looks at the men. “D’av, get my other bag. Johnny, stand guard. We don’t know who might be coming after her.”

Dutch watches her as she works to stem the bleeding and hook her up with fluids. “Thank-you,” she says, sounding weaker than she’d like, “for understanding.”

“My first duty is to protect my patient.”

“Blood loss must be going to my head,” says Dutch, her eyes closing in delirium, “’cause right now, I don’t hate you quite as much as usual.”

Pawter gives her a little smile, blood on her gloved hands, and looks up as D’avin returns with the bag. She takes something from it and scans Dutch. “Just as I thought.” She brings the blanket up to cover Dutch’s modesty, and then turns to D’avin. “I need a word.”

It’s hard for Dutch not to give in to sleep as she watches the others go out into the hallway and close the door. Whatever pain-killers Pawter gave her kick in, and the searing pain in her thigh starts to abate.

Why is she here again? She was here earlier, before they... before they... It's gone. She turns her face into D’avin’s pillow, breathing his scent. Far from the spring-less horror D’avin claims, it is more like Goldilocks’ bed. Not too soft, not too hard. Not too hot, not too cold. Just like him. He should be here. Her soul knows it. But there is something stopping them being together. What the hells is it? She can’t remember. Ah, yes, that’s right. There was a bottle of hokk. There was a gun. There was a smack around the jaw and the terror of him pulling her back towards him for more. There was kill-or-be-killed, and broken relationship all over the floor.

She is floating. Dreams come. Confusing dreams about the past, present and future. John getting hurt. Her ambivalence about D’avin. Turin’s duplicity. Khlyen. And then—

Nothingness.

იტი

Out in the hallway, Pawter snaps off her gloves and speaks in low tones to the two men. “The bullet nicked her femoral artery and she’s been bleeding for quite some time—fact, I’m surprised she was even conscious—but I can’t operate while she’s still hypo. She needs blood. Fast.”

“Take mine,” John says without hesitation.

“No way,” says Pawter, “you’re not haemo-stable yet.”

“Neither are you,” says John, “what are you gonna do, pull some rando off the street?”

“Me then,” says D’avin, “I’m oh-neg, you know that.”

“I’ll have to take two pints, maybe more,” says Pawter, “it’s a risk.”

“Do it. Just,” D’avin hesitates, “don’t let her know it’s mine.”

John looks at him meaningfully. He's right. It would be too intimate, and they're not, not—not yet.

“I'll keep an eye on her vitals while you," John gesticulates helplessly, “give D'av a jab job.”

“Poor choice of words, Jaqobis,” says Pawter cocking her head.

John takes her aside for a moment. “Are you,” he says, making eyebrows at her, “you know, sober?”

“Of course. I wouldn't do that to you.”

“Okay, but I'm assisting you, right?” Satisfied, John leaves them and goes back to Dutch.

“What was all that about?” D'avin says once they are in Pawter's clinic, setting up the equipment.

Without making eye contact, Pawter sits him down, pricks his finger and enters the sample into the machine. It beeps and turns green. “At least we know who you've been sleeping with,” she says, a little passive aggressively for his taste. 

“It's just that when people use the word 'sober' in relation to performing emergency surgery on my partner, I get a little—you know.”

Partner, he said. Partner. Letting things slip.

Pawter continues to ignore his words, picking up his arm like a piece of meat. “You'll feel a little prick,” she says with professional detachment. The cannula goes in and blood starts to flow into the bag.

“With all the bloodletting that's been going on lately,” says D'avin, “you'd think we'd all signed up for Scarback duty.” Pawter doesn't think this is funny, or if she does she doesn't show it, pottering around the room collecting the things she needs for Dutch's surgery. He tries again. “Look, I know it's awkward with me moving in next door, but you don't have to go out of your way to avoid me, we are adults.”

“I've been in rehab,” she says, reaching for a box of surgical swabs on a high shelf.

“Oh,” he says with genuine surprise, “I, uh, oh?”

“On Leith,” she continues, “that's why you haven't seen me around. Why, did you think—”

“I didn't think. I'm not sure what I thought. About that.” He looks down at his hands. “I never wanted—”

“It's quite clear what you wanted, D'avin,” she cuts him off, “all along.”

იტი

When Dutch wakes there is daylight streaming through the window of the clinic and she is curled on the sofa, a thick dressing swamping her throbbing thigh. “What—” she tries to sit up.

“Easy.” Pawter rises from the chair where she’s been snoozing, a flash of blood still on her scrubs.

“Where’re the boys?” Her throat is dry and scratchy, her head woozy.

“Johnny went back to Lucy for your things.”

“D’av?” Dutch squints in the sunlight, wondering if she looks as haggard as she feels.

“Next door, sleeping, presumably,” says Pawter, helping her to a sitting position and passing her a sip of stagnant water, “he wouldn’t leave your side ‘til nearly dawn.”

Dutch follows the IV line in her arm up to the bag of blood. “This had better be at least forty percent alcohol.”

“Actually—” says Pawter, then stops, wrinkling her nose, “never mind. Here, I’ll help you to the toilet.”

Pawter holds the drip for her as she shimmies off her panties and takes a piss in one of the Royale’s grotty, white tiled wet-rooms. “No more dignity left to lose,” she says grimly as she cleans herself up, trying not to get tangled in the IV line or disturb the wound.

“I’ve seen rock bottom.” Pawter averts her eyes politely. “And you’re not it.”

On the way back to the clinic, they pass D’avin’s door. Dutch looks at it for too long. “Take me a while to get used to him not being there.”

Pawter lets them in and eases her back onto the sofa. “Look, I—” she starts awkwardly.

“No, it’s fine,” Dutch jumps in, “we're fine—”

“No, really I don’t—I mean, if you don’t want to see him,” says Pawter, “I can keep him out.”

“Whatever,” she says, not wanting to make a confusing situation worse. But she wants to see him, thank him for the Rack infiltration plan, thank him for staying with her through a surgery she can’t remember, fill in the gaps. Maybe finish what they started last night, putting the team back together. “Look,” she says, “what I said before. I don’t hate you. You saved John. Apparently you saved me. That’s two favours in my book.”

“I don’t hate you. Since we’re sharing now.”

“I trust you,” says Dutch, putting her feet up, “I really do. This is the drugs talking, isn’t it?”

“They do lower your inhibitions.”

They look at each other for a moment they both feel should be filled with whatever bush-beating pleasantries keep frenemies at bay. “I can’t stay here,” says Dutch eventually, attempting to remove the IV and clasping the scratchy blanket around herself, “I have to stop Khlyen.”

“Whoa, Captain Colander,” Pawter puts a hand over the cannula in her arm, “you’re not ready yet. You need to rest for at least a day. And it's nearly time for your medication.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No more meds, need to stay sharp.”

“Are you insane?”

“Insane wishes it was me.” She sits down, hard, threatening the stitches. Outside, the sun goes behind a cloud and the clinic seems all the greyer for it. Like her mood.

“Hey!” John shoulders the door open with a bundle of clothes in his hands, “you’re awake.” He tosses the clothes onto Dutch's lap and sits on the edge of the sofa.

Dutch hugs him extravagantly. “I have to stop him,” she says, muffled by his sweater, “whatever it takes.”

“Healthy first,” says John, hugging back, “then we’ll talk about Khlyen.”

იტი

John has things to do, so she gets dressed in the loose clothes and spends the rest of the day lounging on the sofa, rising only to accept victuals from Pree and to use the bathroom. Her thigh throbs like hell, but she figures out a way to manoeuvre herself around without putting too much weight on it, limping like a pathetic injured animal. She always hated this part. It's rare that she'll rest and lick her wounds after a fight, without plunging right back into the fray, but she might as well enjoy the respite before the real battle begins.

Pawter wisely leaves her alone. Dutch doesn't know or care where the doctor is, or what she's doing.

Later in the afternoon she gets bored of browsing the cortex for news of Turin—obituary, maybe—and goes to investigate next door, swapping the sounds of Westerley life outside the window for the buzz of the bar downstairs. There is no answer when she knocks, so she pushes the door. He’s left it unlocked. Must be because he knew she’d come back in here, and a cursory glance at the bed reveals his probable location; the laundry downtown. He’s stripped off all the bedding, but there is still a significant splodge of her blood soaking into the mattress.

“Feeling better?” A deep voice behind her sends her into fight-or-flight, but the drugs have taken away the urgency of her response. He is less filthy than she found him yesterday morning, holding a plastic bucket of water in his hands.

“Sneaking up on a girl,” she says casually, “not advised.”

He puts down the bucket and kneels in front of the bed, squeezing out a sponge and scrubbing the obscene stain. “Cold water and chlorine for blood,” he says, concentrating on the mess rather than her, “vinegar for urine. Sugar-soap for everything else.”

“I’ll try to remember that,” she says, “for when I’m cleaning up after myself never.”

He smiles, crinkling the corners of his eyes. “You’ll never need to, long as you’ve got me.”

“Remind me to send the army a thank-you note.” Her thigh-ache intensifies and she rubs it. “Ooh.”

“Here,” he says, drying his hands and pulling up the wicker chair from the corner.

“What are you doing?” she says as he helps her into it.

“Taking care of you.”

“Well stop.” She closes her eyes as the waves of pain come. She stretches her leg out in front of her, but it does no good.

“I’ll get Pawter.”

“No, don’t,” she says. His hand on her arm feels nice, strong, warm, and she wants it to stay there. “Stay with me. Talk to me until it passes.”

“What d’you wanna talk about?”

She takes his hand in an arm-wrestling grip, their elbows resting on the chair-arm. “Last night, when I came back,” she winces, “you said you wanted to fight my battles.”

“Uh, huh.”

“Did you mean it?”

“Every word.” He grips her hand with extra strength.

“I want everyone to go into this with their eyes open. Khlyen's dangerous. More dangerous than you'll ever know.”

“I believe you. But I'm still in this.” He makes sure to hold her gaze.

“You have no idea what he's capable of.”

“You have no idea what I'm capable of.” He gives her a lop-sided smile and she confronts his deep blue eyes for a precious second. The past doesn't matter. There is only here and now.

“Argh,” she screws up her face in pain and the moment is gone.

“Hey, I’m just gonna get Pawter anyway, you might have a, you know, a thrombosis or something.”

She stops him leaving. “I’m not usually like this, honest,” she pants.

“Just focus on how awesome the scar is gonna be.”

His strong fore-arm supports her as she coughs and dry-heaves to one side. “Bet you say that to all the girls.” She wipes spittle from her mouth with the back of her free hand.

"My pickup lines are best accompanied by a stiff drink."

“Come home,” she says too quickly, eyes watering from the intense pain and the retching, “Lucy misses you.”

“I dunno,” he says with the ghost of a smile, “Old-Town squalor’s growing on me.”

As if on cue, the sound of two pedestrians arguing drifts through the open window. _You've never got any bloody money_ , says one. _Oh dear, I must've spent it all on pesky food and a roof over my head_ , says the other. Dutch and D’avin smile at each other. The pain is beginning to subside.

“You’re shit on your own, D’av, just admit it.” She closes her eyes, releases her grip on his hand slightly. “You need us.”

Rough translation; I need you.

“I was so scared for you, when Lucy took off. If we're gonna do this, go after Khlyen, it has to be as a team. No half-assed secret solo missions.”

“Can't promise anything,” says Dutch.

“It's gonna take a lot of time and hard work for you to trust me again.”

“I'm prepared to do whatever it takes. Stamp it ‘paid’ and move on.”

“And it's gonna take me a long time to forgive you for bleeding all over my bed.”

They both look over at the ruined mattress.

“Sexy," she laments. "Where are you sleeping tonight?”

He finally releases her hand and sits cross-legged on the floor next to the chair, wiping her sweat on his jeans. “I’ll figure something out with the land-lord.”

“You could always sleep with Pawter.” She raises one eyebrow.

“Heh.” He doesn’t find that as amusing as she does. “I don’t think she’s ever speaking to me again. At least when it’s not to do with your medical expenses.”

“Bad-D'avin is a passion killer,” she says as he goes back to his bucket.

“Actually, I dumped her before—” He can’t say it. Before I was with you. “Can I get you anything before I start scrubbing again?”

“Khlyen’s head on a plate?”

“We’ll get him.” He resumes his attack on the bloody mattress. “I promise. But you have to get well first.”

She closes her eyes again. It’s nice listening to D’avin bustling around the room. Breathing in the smell of bleach. It's clean, comforting. She wants everything to go back to how it was before, but with one crucial difference; for him to find her in his bed and respond accordingly. She wants the chance to find out what it could have been like, had it not been for Jaeger’s interference. She wasn’t looking for this. Didn’t expect it. And she’s never felt like this before. It’s always been so easy to just walk away, but she can’t shake the memories of dancing in the cock-pit, their playful sparring, the rush to get their kit off and bang each other senseless.

Falling into sex with D'avin was too easy, and she's sure that if she showed up in his bed tonight, he wouldn't turn her away. The trouble is, they are just too damn similar. The only two people in the galaxy who know what it's like to be forced to kill so many against their will. They are like two celestial bodies that have no choice but to fall into each other's orbit. But there is hope. It is possible to move on, find a way to work together without falling into bed, or into hate with each other. Terraformers call it the Goldilocks zone; the sweet-spot where life is viable.

They just have to find it.


	2. The Hard Irony of Absence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still in mourning after the events in ‘How to Kill Friends…’ (episode 2.10), Dutch attempts to ease the pain of Khlyen’s death by making D’avin replace John in their usual down-time activities. However, she forgets that she’s not the only one who’s struggling, and it leads to a dual identity crisis.
> 
> Song for this chapter is 'Taken', by Young Summer.
> 
> Trigger Warning: Full-on PTSD.

* * *

 

იტი

 _“Missing you is flashes of our past and fantasies of our future, with the hard irony of the absence of our present as the present occurs.”  —_ Emperor Zhi

იტი

 

“You’re supposed to be undercover, Jaqobis.” Fancy kicks his weapon up from the dank basement floor and into his hand. “Put more emotion into it.”

D’avin is still on his ass where the Hullen shit-wit trounced him. “Put more emotion into it,” he mocks, snapping to his feet. “Starting to regret signing your dance-card.”

“Guys.” Dutch holds Sanrio Rampersaud up against the hot-water pipes by his neck. Her knee is in his groin and in her other arm she cradles the ceramic pot with the orchids. “We got made anyway, so you can stop bickering like a pair of old queens.”

“To be honest,” D’avin says as they join Dutch, weapons ready in case Sanrio tries anything, “I’m surprised you even agreed.”

“Well it’s either this,” says Fancy, “or taking more shit gigs just to pay the rent.”

“Shit gigs?” says Dutch as steam rises from Sanrio’s scalded back.

“Yeah,” says Fancy, “shit gigs, like transpos and repos.”

“Stop saying shit gigs,” says D’avin, “it's starting to sound weird.”

“Can we just get on with this,” says Sanrio, “or have you three got some unresolved tension you want to bang out first?”

“Take this.” Dutch hands D’avin the pot of orchids and takes out a small curved blade to threaten her captive with. “Now then, Craptain Oblivious, tell me where Kylian Luketic is, or I’ll feed you your own gall-bladder.”

“Guess we can tick diplomacy off our checklist,” D’avin says under his breath.

“Don’t know who you’re talking about.” Sanrio ignores the cooking of his back flesh.

“Forgive me,” Dutch feigns cordiality, “if I don’t believe you, but I'm a natural cynic.”

“It can only get worse from here, buddy,” says Fancy, “I’ve seen her do it.”

“What are you doing?” D’avin hisses in his ear.

“It’s scientifically proven people are more compliant if you pretend to be on their side,” Fancy whispers back.

“Proven by who,” whispers D’avin, “the renowned scientist, Sir Francis Guesswork?” He hands Fancy the orchids and takes a small case out of his back pocket.

“What would I want this for?” says Fancy, looking at the flowers.

“Oh, they’re extremely valuable,” says Sanrio, “I was a collector, before—”

“D’avin,” says Dutch, “help him focus.”

D’avin holds up a hypodermic dart from the case. “This is full of a toxin that’ll turn your Hullen-spunk black and make you wish you’d taken the offer to lose a few organs, so you’d better do as the lady requests.”

“Alright, alright,” Sanrio sighs, “I’ll take you to him.”

“Better,” says D’avin.

Dutch kicks Sanrio's legs apart and starts frisking him in preparation for transportation, but stops abruptly. “Shit.” He's not as paralysed as she thought.

A cruel smile begins to spread across Sanrio’s face. Then he does something totally unexpected. He kicks the dart out of D’avin’s left hand and it goes flying. He catches it and, before anyone can react, stabs it into his own eye.

“What the—” says Fancy.

“Why’d you—” says D’avin.

Sanrio pulls Dutch closer by her collar, grinning lasciviously.

“Hey!” D'avin jabs the muzzle of his weapon into the guy's chin. “Back off, cock-wad.”

Dutch gently lowers D'avin's weapon away from them without breaking Sanrio's eye contact. She faces him, unafraid, as he breathes his last three breaths, blackened plasma and spittle seething out from between his teeth. “See you in hells, mother-suckers,” he manages to get out before he expires.

Dutch wipes a spot of black from her cheek as he drops to the floor.

“Gall bladder,” says D’avin as they all look down at the leaking corpse, “really?”

“Why not?” Dutch sticks the empty hypodermic into the body and pulls out black goo.

“People can live without their gall bladders,” D’avin scratches his nose, “my uncle had his out.”

"And cock-wad," she says, "seriously?"

"What?"

Fancy ignores them and takes out his device to get someone to come and clean up the mess. “Yeah, and a pair of ear-protection,” Dutch hears him say, “so I don’t have to listen to these two and their adorable ignorance.”

“What the hells was that, anyway?” says D’avin as they traipse back up the ruined stairs.

“Hullen don’t just commit suicide,” adds Fancy, passing him the orchids, “and they don't get scared of Cheekbones here.”

“I don’t want these,” D'avin says, but takes the orchids anyway. “Yeah, you wish you had my cheekbones.”

“He was expecting us,” Dutch glances back at the others, “his acquiescence was a play. Did you see his face when you brought out the toxin?”

“But why kill himself?” says D’avin, screwing up his face. “In the gods-damn eye. The eye, godsdammit.”

“Maybe he heard about your Hullen suppressant powers,” offers Fancy, “it was either bow out gracefully, or have his head exploded.”

“As long as he didn't hear about it from you,” D'avin scowls.

“Or he knew we knew how to access his memory,” says Dutch, “couldn't risk exposure. Next time we extract plasma and interrogate them D’av’s way.”

“Uh,” says D’avin, “appreciate the recommend, but I don’t exactly relish the thought of mind-linking with any old ass-hole, thanks.”

“We may not have a choice.” Dutch looks back at him seriously, pushing the street door. “We could always juice them first and kill them after.”

“Then you wouldn’t have to worry about accidentally taking a piss with someone else’s dick.” Fancy seems pleased with himself as they step through into daylight.

“Firstly,” says D’avin, attempting to palm the orchids off on Fancy again, “that’s not how it works, and secondly, it’s not an exact enough science to risk killing any Hullen who may have strategic intel. I need to practice first.”

They are on the streets of Old-Town now and Fancy finally dumps the pot of orchids in Dutch’s arms. “Don’t say I never give you anything.”

“What am I supposed to do with these?” she says.

“Dear diary,” Fancy says as he saunters away, weapon slung over his shoulder, “today I teamed up with a couple of imbeciles who don’t know their asses from their faces. It was such fun. Now I’m going to get my nails done.”

იტი

“That’s not Luketic,” says Bellus as Dutch places the pot of orchids on her desk.

“Trail went cold,” says Dutch, throwing herself onto the sofa. D’avin sits next to her, close enough to elicit a barely perceptible look from Bellus. Dutch still notices it, though.

“Trails don’t get cold,” Bellus gets up for hokk, “killjoys get stupid.”

“That’s kinda what Fancy said.” D’avin accepts a glass.

Bellus teases him with it. “Not sure if you deserve this.”

“We’ll get Luketic,” D’avin finally grasps the hokk, “we have to.”

Dutch shares a sympathetic smile with him. He knows how much this means to her.

“Still haven’t heard from Blue-eyes, then.” Bellus gives Dutch a drink and sits in her favourite chair.

“No.” Dutch looks down, hoping her gulp of hokk and her posture do all the explaining. “S’been two weeks. So not like him.”

“He’s probably drunk in some armpit,” says Bellus, “what with all these broadcasts by Delle Shitter Kendry.”

Or dead in some ditch, she tries not to think. “We need you to sell the orchids for us, Bell,” she says, “offset the expenses of our failed mission.”

Bellus sits back down. “Want me to sell sand to White Plains while I’m at it? Look around you girl, they’ve got enough flowers on this forsaken moon.”

“This one’s special,” D’avin leans forward, showing her something on his PDD.

Bellus gives a low whistle. “Queen’s Cabinet Orchid, worth ten thousand joy. Can’t keep it here. What if I get raided, or audited, or don’t give a crap about watering the damn thing?”

“You have to,” says Dutch.

“Lucy is more secure anyway,” says D’avin, draining his hokk, “and I’ll water it.”

Bellus has an idea. “Try the necro-noticeboard. Chance Luketic might be on there.”

“What’s the necro-noticeboard?” says D’avin.

“S'where outlaws post grudges and vendettas. People in need of jakk-joy carry out the hit. If your boy’s crossed anyone, his name’ll be there.”

“So, it’s like a—” starts D’avin.

“Low-rent version of the RAC,” finishes Dutch.

“I’ll send you the coordinates,” says Bellus, "it's in an old mine on Westerley.”

“It's Westerley,” says Dutch, “everything’s in an old mine.”

იტი

 _“Hot Robot Three: Journey to Boob Mountain,”_   Dutch skids across the deck in ankle socks, “or _Cannibal Girls in the Avocado Jungle of Death?”_

“Why are you firing bad movie titles at me?” D’avin brings their coffee over from the galley as she settles in, arranging cushions and blankets.

When John is gone, her mind and body do not function properly. She feels hyper, out of control, licentious even. Her heart is unsteady, her mind numb, and she aches to be filled with hokk, with dick, with anything really. “Raided Johnny's collection. Thought it would make us feel like he was here.”

He stares at her for a second, obviously thinking she’s lost the plot. “Okay,” he finally concedes, joining her on the sofa, “but not _Avocado Jungle_. I’ve seen that one, and I never wanna eat guacamole again.”

“Mountainous boobs it is,” she smirks, blowing across the top of her mug, “Lucy, do the honours.”

The Hot Robot fills the screen. She really is hot.

“Wow,” says D’avin, brows arching, “those are some boobs.”

“And they don’t even build it up,” says Dutch, “you’re just confronted with them from the word action.”

“You like them,” he teases.

“They are kinda,” she wrinkles her nose, “metallic.”

“I can see why he likes this. It’s totally crap-tastic. Hey, why don’t we do this more often?”

“Because you usually fall asleep and then someone has to explain the plot when you snore yourself awake.”

“Mental note, don’t fall asleep,” he says, already yawning.

About halfway through the first act, Hot Robot tries to enlist help from a gloriously well-endowed male stripper and Dutch puts her feet up on D’avin’s lap. “Is this Okay?”

“Fine.” He sips coffee and puts it back down on the table. It’s more difficult with her lower limbs on him, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Johnny rubs them.”

He blinks slowly in consternation, mouth tight. “Okay,” he says.

She closes her eyes as his massive hands knead her toes, her heel, her plantar fascia. So good. She flashes back to him expertly unhooking her bra. It would be so easy for him to snake his hands up her bare legs, if he so desired, pull her panties down and go to work. She wants him to. But if he feels the same way, he doesn't show it, massaging diligently and watching the space boobs.

A little way into the second act, when Hot Robot is chained to the wall of a fluorescent plastic sex dungeon, she says, “Johnny gets me chocolate.”

“I don’t think we have any chocolate.”

“I have a secret stash.”

“Oh, thank the gods. What would we do without you caching away confectionery like a psychotic squirrel?” His words may be leaden, but he still gets up.

“In the old tin,” she watches his shirt ride up, revealing toned obliques as he pushes the orchids aside and reaches into the cupboard, “up high.”

He comes back with a fist-full of bon-bons, dropping them into the fold of her oversized T-shirt. “Wait a minute, is that my shirt?”

“Aw, you don’t mind,” she says, snuggling up under his arm, and he shifts his position, reclining a little, to compensate.

“What if I do mind? Do I get a say in you raiding my closet?”

“I’ll pay you in kind.” She unwraps one of the bon-bons and pops it into his mouth.

“Treat day’s not ‘til Thursday,” he says through chocolate.

“Stop being so healthy.”

“Yes ma’am.”

This is nice. Maybe they can do this after all. Very soon, her snuggling goes from simply leaning into his side, to putting her arm around his middle as well, trying not to elbow him in the crotch. “You're nice and warm,” she says.

“Let me guess,” he says, “John lets you do this.”

“Is it too weird?” She squints up at him. Hot Robot is fighting back against her oppressive overlords. Now there is a weird purple gas.

“I don’t mind as long as you don’t.” He’s not sure where to put his arm, but eventually settles on the back of the sofa. “I know you two kids are strictly PLP, but does he ever get a boner?”

“No. Why, are you getting a boner?” She yearns to have that emptiness filled, yearns for male energy next to her. Someone male in her. That's the thing about brothers, they are so similar, yet not that similar. It's like having John around but with the added element of sexual possibilities. She's always had to scold herself for seeing D'avin as John mark two. But he's not. He's his own thing, and he's proved himself consistently. Fully integrated into their processes. She can't live without him now, and the thought that she might lose him, either to enemy action, or because her own antics push him away, makes her sit bolt upright. He hasn't noticed that she's let go, concentrating on the movie. In fact, he’s not even blinking and his breathing is becoming strained. “D’av,” she says, worried, “I said, are you—D’av?”

“Pause,” he says to the movie, and then stands up and walks straight out of the mess without even acknowledging her.

She looks at the screen. A man has just stabbed himself in the solar plexus under purple-gas mind-control and is bleeding onto the psychedelic shag-pile carpet. “Shit.” All her breath leaves her then. She wasn't even paying attention.

იტი

She finds him in John’s room, wedged between the far-side of the bed and the bulkhead, his arms around his knees and his face hidden between them. It’s like her heart is deserting her body. “Do you... want to be on your own?” she says, holding onto the doorway, almost as scared as he is. Scared of what she's done, what she's doing to him. Scared of what he's capable of. He shakes his head in a small way, still hiding. She vaults over the bed, crouches down and puts her hands on his shoulders. He doesn’t respond, trembling ever-so slightly. “Tell me what you need.” He doesn’t answer. She puts her arms around him. “It’s all my fault, I should’ve checked.”

She holds him for a while until he finally raises his head and shows her red eyes. “It comes when you least expect, you know. You can be doing fine for ages and then out of nowhere—the smallest, random things—” He chokes.

“It’s Okay,” she strokes his hair, curls his hand on his knee, “it doesn’t mean you’re weak.”

“I can’t control it,” he sniffs.

“I know.”

“Not yet.”

She waits patiently for him to un-tense, looking around her at the things John left behind. Number-two jacket hanging on a peg, various items of tech in a state of cannibalisation, a bottle of cologne on the night-stand. His smell is fading already. It's sweet that D'avin came in here, rather than his own room, and she realises how much this is affecting him too, that he's putting a brave face on things. “How are you feeling now?”

“It’s like shock waves that start off really vivid, but then they trail off.” He mimes several small explosions with his free hand, getting smaller and then falling down.

She squeezes him tighter and their faces are close. Close enough to kiss. No, she tells herself, that would be the absolute worst thing to do. They’ve already been there, remember, and look how it ended. They let each other go before it turns into full-on cuddle-humping.

“Okay now?”

He wipes his face with his sleeve and seems to recover a little. “Thanks for staying with me and putting up with my shit.”

“Any time,” she says, sitting beside him and still, somehow, holding his hand.

“There was always gonna be a point where our shit crosses over, and I think today was it.”

“I wasn’t thinking of you. Making you do that was gross. It’s just gross, and it's not us.”

“Snuggling's not the problem,” he says, “it's the freaking out part.”

She manages a tiny smile. "You're not Johnny. I do know that." She remembers that evening, when they looked up from their beers to realise that John hadn't returned from the head, or wherever it was they thought he'd gone. Fresh air. Dinner. A day passed. Another day. Then it turned into a week, and another. They tried every avenue of detection. They supported each other, or so they thought, but now it turns out that they hadn't been supporting each other at all, just plastering over the cracks.

“I don’t know who I am, not really. I’m not Staff Sergeant D’avin Jaqobis of the Skyborne Second Shield. He’s dead. I’m not Kobee Andras anymore. He owes people a shit-ton of money. I’m not the scared kid Dad abandoned in the mountains, haven’t been for a lifetime. So, who am I?”

“You're still becoming you,” she says, “you're not the same man we dragged off the Arcturus.”

“I'm not special. I'm only special because the army made me special.”

“I saved your ass before I knew you were,” she struggles for the right word, “enhanced. You can't let your powers become all that you are. What if they're taken away? What would be left?”

“Nobody,” he says, “I'm nobody.”

“You're not nobody.” She hooks a hand round the back of his neck, presses their foreheads together. “You’re my partner,” she says, “for all we know, my only partner. And fixing things is what we do. So, how we gonna solve this problem?”

“We have to learn to take care of each other.” He searches her eyes. “We have to be honest about what's going on in our lives and not hide things. And we have to figure out what we are to each other without a John between us like a chastity pillow.”

She lets go. “Point taken.”

“Hey, what’s this?” He seems to recover a little and puts his hand under John’s mattress where he can see something sticking out. He gives her what she at first thinks is a comic-book, but when they look at the cover, it turns out to be a copy of  _Hot Guys Holding Plants_. “Plants?” D’avin screws up his face, “who in all the worlds thinks plants are sexy?” He reaches in again and pulls out a silver disc.

“That’s—” she starts.

“Pawter’s holo-phone,” he finishes.

“Lucy,” says Dutch, “where’s the other half of this?”

 _“I believe John took it with him when he abandoned us,”_ she says.

Dutch and D’avin share a glance at Lucy’s choice of words.

“Lucy,” Dutch says again, with more than a warning in her voice, “it's been two bloody weeks. When were you going to tell me he had a holo-phone?” Lucy doesn’t answer.

იტი

Later when she comes in, he is misting the orchids with water, still muttering “Plants” to himself and shaking his head.

“Maybe they're poison.” She leans back on the kitchen counter, arms folded. “Could be why they're valuable to Luketic.”

“It's rare there's a plant you know nothing about,” he agrees, “should get it tested.”

She touches the petals. “I've recorded a message to Johnny. Don't know if he'll pick it up.”

“If you're never apart—” He puts the water-spray away and dries his hands, arranging the towel neatly on the holder. “You'll never know how strong your bond really is.”

“What if he never comes back?” She looks at him with glassy eyes. “What if I'm just angry forever?”

“He is coming back. For you. But if the worst happens—and sometimes we do have to consider what we'd do if the worst happens—you'll just have to find a way to live on.”

“And what about you? Gonna have to face it, they're a liability, these episodes, unpredictable. You're about as stable as a jello salad.” She comes closer, speaks softly. “I think you should take some time off.”

“I’m not gonna do that.” He turns back to the orchid. “You’re bereaved and you’re vulnerable. When was the last time you did this alone?”

“Never.”

“Exactly. We’re still a team. You’ve declared war, so now we have to formulate an attack plan.”

“So, what do we do, if this is the start of something? I’m not a psychiatrist. I’m not equipped to help you. I don’t know what to do if you freeze—”

“I won’t. I just need to know you’ve got my back. If I spend any more time thinking about it, allow myself to be traumatised, it’ll be like I never returned from Red Seventeen.” He holds out his hand and she takes it, pulls him in for a hug.

“I just wanted to forget Khlyen,” she says into his shirt.

“Losing them both on the same day was super hard on you,” he says, “but you have to give yourself a break. We all crumble sometimes.”

“Getting away from him was about not just surviving, but thriving. This isn't thriving. This isn't even surviving.”

“Well it's over now.” D'avin rocks them gently. “You don't have to worry about him any more.”

Paying Khlyen back had become her entire life. When they're constantly forced into circumstances they didn't choose, people barely have time to find out who they are. Who is she without Khlyen? Who is she when John's not there to temper the storm? Who is D'avin without the powers? All she knows is that they cannot give in to the ghost-of-attraction-past just to feel better. They must focus on the war. This is not their story. There will be no happy-ever-after.

There is only here and now, and she has to take what she can get.

It's not like they haven't embraced before. They have. A lot. But when she looks back, she realises there was so much subtext that she ignored. Maybe it’s because of earlier, but something’s different, like it's not entirely platonic. Shit-no, it’s not platonic. She breaks away, can’t look at his face. “Lucy, delete that movie,” she says as she walks away.


	3. Shrapnel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Following some detective work at the necro-noticeboard, Dutch and D’avin are hot on the trail of Kylian Luketic, but soon fall foul of a location device that threatens both theirs and Lucy’s safety. Removing it means they are forced to be more intimate than they’re prepared for. Then Dutch makes a startling discovery.
> 
> Song for this chapter is 'Bad Weather', by Superhumanoids.
> 
> Warning for medical procedures.

* * *

 

იტი

 _“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”_ ―Rumi

იტი

 

You can't just wish away trauma, but it helps being honest, knowing she's got his back. She checks on him often, and he checks on her.

“How are you doing today?” she says, as they navigate the mineshaft.

“Not great.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

“Think it’s better if I talk to Alvis.”

“Oh, so you guys are besties now?” She steps over dusty old clothes which may, or may not, contain a skeleton.

“It's kind of a man thing. And he knows a lot about meditation. What about you, are you—”

“Better when we get this bastard.” She stops in front of a wooden structure, littered with sticky notes and yellowed photos. “Wasn’t expecting an actual notice-board.” Dutch scans her flashlight over it.

“What were you expecting,” says D’avin, touching some of the notes, “something digital?”

“Something readable.” She peers at a faded advertisement, and they look at the offerings for a while. “I suppose it makes sense, you can’t hack a piece of paper.”

"This place is a goldmine for anyone who wants to solve cold cases." D'avin finds a picture of ten severed fingers tendered in evidence.

Dutch gives him a wry smile. "There's the premise of your new show."

“What about this one?” He takes a pin out of the cork-board. “Zeta-theta-mu, isn’t that Luketic’s fraternity?”

She takes it from him, shining a light.

 _ζθμ_  
_KT to any & all, K to MB’s T _  
_J¤¥3500 ONA_  
_NN accepted_  
_Fulfilled 3-10-60 by NN_  
_Received J¤¥3500 + bonuses_

“Query. Why would a criminal organisation use headed notepaper?”

“So they can identify notes from each other, avoid stepping on each other’s toes?” offers D’avin. “Or maybe they don’t care who knows who they are?”

“Or maybe they’re counting on the hit-men knowing their rep. A kind of job security.” She takes out her device, scrolls through Luketic’s frat pics. “KT means K’ai Teoh. K to someone’s T?”

“Knife to the throat,” says D’avin shining his flashlight under his chin, “in this context. Wonder what MB did to deserve it.”

“So we know they were booking hits as recently as ten and sixty. Teoh must still be around somewhere.” A quick search proves unfruitful. “Damn, there’s no connection down here.”

“Wait,” says D’avin, “could K’ai Teoh be Katie Teoh, owner of the Empire Club on Aura?”

Dutch’s eyes light up. “Kylian’s frat bro is a girl now.”

“How would that even work with Hullen?” he says as they make their way back to the surface.

“Hullen heal, but if you cut something off, it won’t grow back,” says Dutch confidently.

“How would you even know that?”

“How do you know who owns a strip club on Aura?”

იტი

Shards of intense pain slice into her back, but still she does not utter a sound. Years of discipline in the harem taught her that. She pushes herself up from the gantry and looks at D’avin.

He is on his hands and knees as if he is about to start a race, blood soaking through a dozen gashes in his shirt. "I don't think they liked your singing."

“Can you run?” She grasps him by the upper arm.

“About to find out,” he winces. Together they half-run, half-limp through the backstage area, pushing past burlesque performers in various states of undress who yelp and herd themselves away from the two desperate and bleeding intruders. “Pardon me, ma’am,” D’avin salutes a young woman with a full skirt hitched up to her chest.

None of them are brave enough to intervene on Teoh's behalf, still shaken by the minor explosion.

“Get your lady-business out of my face,” Dutch says to one of them, dragging D’avin out of the fire exit, Teoh and her gang on their heels.

“There’s no point in running, little mice,” Teoh shouts after them, shooting unsuccessfully as the door bangs closed behind her, “I’ll always find you!”

იტი

“What is it?” D’avin tries to get a look at his own back as Dutch pushes the button to close Lucy’s cargo-bay door.

“Tracker shrapnel.” Dutch is already retrieving equipment from one of the lockers. “A kind of anti-theft device. Lucy, take off pattern, Strawberry Jaccuzzi.”

Lucy revs her engines without a warm-up. It will take longer to achieve full manoeuvrability, but at least they’ll be in the air.

“Strawberry Jaccuzzi?”

“Johnny really needs to work on those code-words,” says Dutch, a huge pair of pliers in her hand. “Come on, you first, otherwise they’ll be on top of us before you can say ‘five joy cover-charge and a complementary buffet’.”

D’avin peels his shirt off with difficulty and sits on a stool at the work-bench. “Sure you don’t want to go first?”

“I have a higher pain threshold. I can wait. Besides, I’m not having you doing mine shaking with shock.”

“I’m not in shock,” he says.

 _“D’avin,”_   says Lucy, _“your blood pressure is plummeting and you are being defensive, a sure sign that you are in intense physical and mental anguish.”_

“Fair enough.” He screws up his face as Dutch goes for the biggest piece of shrapnel and, sure enough, emits a stream of expletives under his breath as the pliers sink into his flesh. “Mother—gah! You are the world’s shittest surgeon.”

“There you go. Souvenir.” The bloodied shrapnel clinks as she drops it on the bench, about an inch long and lined with grooves and ridges, implying artifice, yet somehow organic. Dutch runs her fingers over the skin of his back, figuring out which shards are the highest priority. “Why is everything going to shit lately?”

“Don’t say it,” he grimaces.

“I wasn’t going to say it’s Johnny’s fault, but it is.”

“It’s not like we’ve never worked as a two before.” He grips the bench as she goes for a particularly deep shard, slightly embedded in a rib. “Son of a—”

“Yeah, but all those times, Johnny was running ops from Lucy.”

“We need a nerd on the team. Nghhh—” He is starting to shake uncontrollably.

“Lucy, how are D’av’s vitals?”

 _“On a scale of one to ten?”_   says Lucy, _“feeble.”_

“Is it me,” says D’avin, reeling from the pain, “or is she really bitchy lately?”

“The mission didn’t fail because of the lack of nerd-ery. We’ve never not got our man, but this shit-dick continues to elude us. What’s going wrong with your tactical brain, Mister Strategy?” She taps his skull with the pliers.

“I’m not a maverick, Dutch,” he says, gritting his teeth against her shard-pulling, “I always had a team.”

This takes her aback. Her hands, which have been running through his hair, checking his scalp for shrapnel, falter. He never alludes to his squad, or anything army related, for that matter. It hits her, hard, that the pain was the same as the pain she would feel losing him, only multiplied by a factor of five. Or maybe five million. And then another wave of realisation; what if she was the one to kill him, unable to control her actions, blood on her hands that she never wanted? She pulls out the last small piece of shrapnel and it skitters across the work bench along with the pliers. “You’re all done.”

“Thank fugazi.” He gets up painfully.

She takes the stool in front of him, pulling her top over her head, but keeping it in front of her chest like a shield.

“You’re gonna have to—” he pulls her bra-strap.

“I’m sure you can manage.”

He undoes it, carefully, tenderly. “Is this when you tell me you’ve got a weird surgery fetish?”

“Only as a prelude to other things.” She turns her head, a smile tugging the corner of her mouth despite the searing pain.

“Okay,” he says, deep breath, pliers ready, “I’m going in.”

She closes her eyes in preparation, but he’s surprisingly gentle. His fingers trail all over her back, rough and callused, yet soft in their probing. A tense silence flows between them. Eventually D’avin’s touch slows and he swallows thickly. She can’t see his face, but she knows what he’s thinking. Even though she has her clothes pressed tightly to her chest, allowing his wandering hands near her side-boob may be overstepping a boundary.

 _“May I remind you, D'avin,”_   says Lucy, _“that this is a race against time. Teoh’s people have locked onto us with their tracking technology.”_

He does the rest of the shards quickly and efficiently, an edge to his voice. “Thank you, Lucy.”

_“Teoh has a bird in the air. Would you like me to evade them?”_

“Yes please, Lucy,” says Dutch, “that would be nice. Don’t feel like getting shot down today.”

“We should really stock a couple of parachutes,” says D’avin, and she turns her head to glare at him, “just in case. What? Just sayin’.”

He finally removes her last piece of shrapnel and throws it in a bucket, sweeping in the others.

“Lucy,” says Dutch, still half-dressed on her stool, “door open.”

_“I cannot open my airlock while in motion.”_

“I don’t care about health and safety, override it. What do you expect us to do, pull up at the nearest service station for road-maps and jerky?”

Lucy is silent.

Dutch shares a glance with D’avin.

“Lucy,” he says sweetly, “we need to take out the trash, otherwise gangsters are gonna scalp us and make fetish-wear out of our ass-hide.”

_“Airlock ready.”_

“Oh, she opens up for you,” says Dutch.

"All the nice girls do." D’avin presses the keypad and chucks the bucket in, shutting it rapidly after. There is a sucking noise as Lucy opens the docking port from the exterior and the refuse flies out.

“Lucy,” says Dutch, “where is Teoh now?”

_“Following the tracker shrapnel into the Auran Ocean.”_

“That was close,” says D’avin.

“Y’think? Lucy, take us back to the Quad. We’re gonna need medical attention.”

_“Plotting course now.”_

“Now we just have to figure out how we’re gonna close these up.” D’avin cleans his hands on some wet-wipes.

“No staples,” she says, “gonna need stitching properly, but we’re running low on medical supplies.”

“Johnny gets the medical supplies.” There is a pregnant pause after he says it.

“It’s okay,” says Dutch, “you can say his name without me going nuclear.”

“I miss the fluffy little bastard too, you know. I keep playing that message over and over.”

“Tape for now,” she says, taking a small jar out of her pants pocket, “and here, this is myrrh ointment.”

“Isn't that for embalming?”

“Yeah, and if you wrap me up like a mummy, I’m going to be extremely peeved.”

“But you won’t be able to do anything about it,” he smiles, sorting through dressings on the table.

They are silent while he applies butterfly sutures to each wound and covers them with gauze and ointment. “You have a lot of scars,” he says finally.

“Souvenirs of stupidity.”

He prods a small burn on her ribs. “This one wasn’t here when we—” he stops.

“It’s alright,” she says, “you’re allowed to talk about it.”

“Should we talk about it?”

“It happened, and we moved on, and we don’t need to go back there, but we should be totally honest about how it affects us now.”

“As in?” He turns his head down low to tend a gash on her waist.

“Itches gonna itch and people gonna scratch.” She puts her clothes back on over her head. “And I don’t think people should scratch an itch at the expense of the team.”

“We have to agree not to do any itching, then.”

“Or scratching.”

“Agreed.”

Dutch slides off the stool and manhandles him onto it. “Get us, talking about our feelings,” she says, putting ointment on one of his biggest wounds, "almost like real people."

“You don't have to be so shut down, y'know.” D’avin rests his chin on his shoulder so that they can see each other. “All this emotion simmering under the surface. It’s not healthy.”

“I have so much to be angry about. If I let it out, it'll never stop. I don't—I don’t want you to see that.” She does another big one. “I don’t want you to bear the brunt of my shit-storm.”

“You don't need to protect me. I’m not Johnny, remember? Get angry. Rail on me.”

If only he knew the chaos that would ensue if she ever took him up on that offer. Some things should be left unsaid. Some things are just too ugly. “How did you get the scar on your chin?” she says, changing the subject.

“Hmmm,” he almost laughs. “I wanna say first professional boxing match, but it was actually a girl with a devastating right jab and a diamond engagement ring.”

“What about this one?” She touches the scar on his elbow, about six inches long from a surgical incision, all faded to white.

“First sky-fall. Kept it to remind me not to be an idiot at terminal velocity.”

“Must’ve hurt.”

He shrugs. “Been banged up so often I cost the army more in medical bills than they ever made out of me.”

She notices, with not a little emotion, the remnant of the scar left by the Skeevers. “There, all done.” She pats his last dressing.

He checks his back. "Almost as good as Nurse Johnny." 

“Sure we’ve got some painkillers somewhere,” she says, rummaging around in their personal items and then ducking into his backpack. “Oh, we do have medical supplies.”

D’avin blanches. “Dutch—”

“What’s this?” She finds two bottles of pills.

“Uh—”

“We said we were going to be honest." A squall comes over her face. "About everything.”

“Yeah, and that didn’t include rifling through my personal things.” He holds out his hand.

“If you’ve got nothing to hide,” she says, “you don’t need to be so shifty, do you?”

“It’s just seroxibutrine and a few—” he scratches his nose the way he does when he’s lying or doesn’t want to talk about it, “a few copazenol.”

“Copazenol,” she says, angry and disappointed in equal measure, “we talked about this.”

“I need it to sleep.” He reaches out for it.

She snatches the bottle away. “No, you don’t.”

“I can’t just stop taking it, there are considerations.”

“You mean withdrawal.” She stands with her hands on her hips, looks up at the ceiling to stop tears coming. “How long have you been on it?”

He breathes a couple times, mouth a thin tight line. “Since,” he falters, looks down, blinking, “since Sabine. It’s just one a day.”

“It says one is enough to give a healthy person a stroke and there’s two hundred in here. How the hells did you get them?”

“I know a guy.”

“This is why you're out of whack.” She rattles the bottle close to his face. “This is what caused your little meltdown.” She reads the other bottle. “Seroxibutrine, what are you taking that for?”

“Headaches. It’s perfectly safe.”

“Medicine jakk isn’t safe. Do you want to end up like—”

“Go on,” he says, face grim, “say it. Like Mom? Yeah, I knew you’d throw that back at me eventually.”

Her shoulders fall as he walks away. “D’avin,” she calls, “come back, I didn’t mean it.”

“Yeah y’did,” his voice floats through from the back of the hold.

იტი

It’s twilight on Leith.

Dutch pokes a gun in the young woman’s back as she unlocks the front door of her cottage slash clinic. “I’m not going to hurt you, I just want you to suture a wound. Or thirty.”

The woman raises her hands slowly. “Not my first rodeo,” she says. “Stitching up criminals, I can do. Long as you keep it quiet and you pay me. In advance.”

“Fine,” Dutch tucks her weapon away, “here’s three hundred. And FYI we’re not criminals.”

D’avin stoops to follow them through the tiny cottage door into a makeshift waiting room full of dog anatomy posters and advertisements for worming medication. “She’s a veterinarian?” This is the first thing he’s said to Dutch since their argument.

“No RAC certified docs,” she says as they go through to the exam room, “can’t let this get back to Turin.”

The vet, Gina Alexopoulos, D’avin reads from her diploma, gives them both side glances as she gathers materials.

“So, this Luketic thing is off the books?” he says. “Anything else you neglected to tell me?”

“You have spinach in your teeth from earlier.” Dutch hitches her ass onto the examination table.

“Do you two,” Gina frowns, “want me to leave you alone for a minute?”

“She’s just grumpy because she found out I was still taking copazenol,” D’avin sighs, arms folded and leaning against the door-frame.

“Copazenol?” says Gina, fetching an instrument from the trolley. “That’s for severe epilepsy, some pretty strong stuff. The side effects rarely make it worth the risk.”

“See, I told you,” Dutch glares at him.

“The army gave it to me,” says D’avin, “for a brain injury.”

Gina shines a light in his eyes. He flinches as if he’s just knocked back a shot of particularly rough whiskey. “Does that hurt?”

“Yes,” he says, pushing her away with a flat palm, “and I’m not a hamster.”

“Just trying to help,” says Gina, “like you asked me to.”

“D’avin," Dutch warns, "apologise to the nice lady.”

“Sorry, not big on doctors.”

“Maybe I’d believe that," Dutch says, removing her jacket, "if you didn’t sleep with everyone who treated you.” 

“You have to keep bringing that up, don’t you?”

Gina looks at them both with mild amusement. “How long have you been married?”

“Ooh, let me think,” says Dutch, narrowing her eyes at him and taking her shirt off, “must be nine years now, isn't it darling?”

“Nine agonising years,” D'avin averts his eyes from her immodesty, “remember it like it was yesterday, you wore that peasant smock and a little daisy in your hair...”

Dutch looks at him with venom. “I hate daisies and you forgot our anniversary.”

“No, I didn’t. I bought you that ugly-ass leopard statue, remember. Thought it was your spirit animal.”

“Ugh,” says Dutch, as Gina begins removing the old dressings, “only one year to go before I can cut you loose.”

იტი

Dutch is adjusting her hair in the rambler’s reversing mirror when he finds her. He ambles up slowly, as one would approach an injured animal. “She's not gonna step out of it, you know.”

“She?” She looks up.

He grasps the roll-bars. “I know what this is about. You're afraid of me losing control. Becoming him again. But I'm in control.” He throws the empty pill bottle onto the passenger seat.

“Where are they?” She picks up the bottle and examines it.

“Clogging up Lucy's septic system.”

“What about—”

“I'll be fine.”

She pats the seat and he gets in. “This is where I sit when I can't sleep.”

“It’s not falling asleep,” he says, looking at his own folded hands in his lap, “it's staying asleep.”

“Tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“Everything.” She takes a swig from a flask of something strong and passes it to him. “This is it, the night.”

“The night?” He takes a swig and grimaces.

“Everyone has a night where they stay up ‘til dawn, telling someone everything, and it cements their partnership forever. We never had that.”

“What about—”

“Drinking games don't count,” she smiles warmly.

“Did you get this idea from Johnny?”

 _“Zombie High Part Six: Brainz Academy,”_   she laughs, and then rapidly swaps to contrition. “Look, about before—”

“No, you were right,” he cuts her off, “it was totally justified—”

“I just wanted to say it was below the belt.” She meets his gaze in the low light. “And I'm sorry.”

He looks over her face appreciatively. “We're going to be alright, you and me. I can't stay mad at you forever.”

იტი

They stay up late, talking and drinking and laughing, until they go to bed in different rooms, alone, but still somehow together.

When she wakes up in the morning he is packing a bag, dark circles under his eyes and hair mussed in various directions. She stands in his doorway, John’s white shirt hanging off one shoulder, and the question pauses with her heartbeat. “Wh—”

“I’m just going to the monastery for a few days.” He pats her shoulder reassuringly on the way past. “You said I should take time off and I haven’t seen Jake for ages.”

“Oh, um, Okay,” she is barely coherent, squinting and hungover, “say hi to Al for me.”

იტი

She is left on her own once more, and everything is wrong. “Lucy, play Johnny’s message on the holo-phone again.” Lucy doesn’t respond, and Dutch can’t remember where D’avin left the holo-phone. "Dammit, you insolent metal bitch!" She kicks the bulkhead and sinks to the deck, sobbing. "I know you blame me."

More drink does nothing to slake her fury at D'avin.

If she examined herself for the truth, she would say that she missed it, the thrill of confrontation. Him challenging her assumptions, the only one who ever really stood up to her. They haven't had that since John left, just dancing around each other, trying not to tread on the broken glass.

Shit, she realises, sparring is their version of intercourse. They'd been screwing all along. How can she live with him after this revelation?

She takes the single copazenol out of her waist pocket. She'd purloined it earlier without him seeing, hoping to test the purity. “Chemical analysis,” she tells her PDD. One hundred percent pure it says. It's legit. She holds it up to the light and the glow of Lucy's LEDs shine through the translucent pill. Something John once said stuck in her mind. Their mother told them not to take drugs, but if they felt they had to, they should bring it to her first, so that she could try it. Shitty parenting alarm bells should have rung, but she'd laughed it off at the time. It didn’t mean anything then, but now she understands.

The pill hovers indecisively in front of her mouth.

What the hell. She wants to know how it feels being him, just for one night. She washes it down with a bottle of water from the fridge. Nothing happens. Maybe it's not that bad after all. She wanders around Lucy like a ghost, feeling for the echo of her absent boys. Her ability to walk these corridors with ease testament to her ability to forgive them.

Thirty minutes pass.

Still nothing.

Evening falls again and she changes into a silk slip, easing it over her still sore back. It's not like he's going to see her wandering around in a negligée and get randy. Then the meds kick in. Oof. It's like wading through honey, but not in a good way. She lurches into her room on autopilot and only just makes it to the bed before falling unconscious.


	4. High Tide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While D’avin is detoxing, Dutch finds another lead. However, the ensuing warrant doesn’t go to plan, and ends up threatening their already fragile partnership. How far is she willing to go to get what she wants? How far is D'av willing to go to please her? Is there any way they can come out of this stronger and not just self destruct because Johnny's not there to mediate?
> 
> Soundtrack for this chapter is 'Everything Trying', by Damien Jurado.

* * *

 

იტი

 _“Do not turn me_  
_into_  
_restless waters_  
_if you cannot promise_  
_to be my stream.”_  
―Sanober Khan

იტი

 

“How is he?” She catches up with Alvis in the monastery's leafy corridor. “Really?”

“Consistently inconsistent,” says Alvis. “I’ve never known anyone so intensely focussed, yet so easily distracted by a grilled cheese sandwich. Man needs hobbies, Dutch.”

“He has two hobbies, working out and more working out. He used to throw knives, but accidentally stabbing Johnny put an end to that.”

“When we’re in our therapy sessions,” Alvis looks at her seriously, “it’s all I can do to not stab myself.”

“Well, your prayers have been answered. I've come to rescue you from babysitting duty.”

“Praise the trees,” says Alvis, taking one hand out of his robes, “because he's this close to driving me nuts.”

They round a corner and come into the dojo where several of the monks are practicing yoga. “How long has he been like that?” says Dutch.

D'avin is wearing sweats, locked in a headstand.

“About four hours,” says Alvis.

“That can't be good.”

“Hey!” D’avin notices her and goes into a roll, finishing on his feet and enveloping her in an enthusiastic hug.

იტი

“What’s for dinner, Lucy?” D’avin is in good spirits as they enter, dumping his bag on the desk.

 _“I don’t eat dinner, D’avin,”_   Lucy says brightly, _“I’m a ship.”_

“How about fish and chips,” says Dutch, “and a healthy portion of crushing disappointment slash impending danger slash holy-shit-in-a-side-car?”

“Drama queen,” says D’avin.

“Actual queen,” she smirks impishly.

“Fish and chips sounds good. Can only get that on Qresh, though.”

“We'd better go there, then,” says Dutch, searching for the right wig in a locker, “best togs on. Pip-pip.”

“How are you planning on getting through border control?” D’avin isn’t really paying attention to her quick change, unpacking soothing teas from the monastery. “What if we get ID-ed? What about money? I’m brassic.”

“No worries. Got a warrant.” Dutch shrugs on a different jacket, flipping her hair out of the collar.

“On the books this time?”

“Sort of. While you were off balancing your chi, I tracked down another of Luketic’s Fraternity brothers, known smuggler, Petro Zimas. Has a predilection for seafood. Very expensive seafood.”

იტი

“Mermaids,” says Dutch, blinking as she and D’avin stand in front of the enormous tank in the casino lobby, “that’s your thing?”

“Haven’t got a thing,” he says, still gawping, “I’m a zero on the spectrum. Taken a while, but I've come to terms with it.”

“Ahem,” Dutch coughs, “I know for a fact that you’ve had your PDD fixed three times because of all the tentacle porn. You get one free spin on the wheel of shame for that.”

“Kink-shaming,” D’avin shakes his head, “not cool.”

One of the mermaids, or rather performers in sequins, winks at him before rising to the surface for her next air-fix. He smiles back, and Dutch pulls him towards the red-carpeted stairs, patrons making way for their badges. “Come on, Captain Cod-fish. Tongue off the floor.”

“I could do that,” he says as they bound up the stairs.

“Yeah.”

“I'm serious.”

“Well, if killing for joy doesn't work out.” Dutch puts her hand on the ornate banister as they reach the fifth floor. “Let’s keep this as low-key as possible, Okay? We don’t want to draw any more attention to ourselves.”

“You have a reservation?” says the maitre d’ as they breeze past.

Dutch holds up her ID without even looking at her. “Here's my reservation.” She continues to Zimas’s booth as the maitre d’ scrambles to call the manager. “And here's our table.”

She stops in front of Zimas, who is just dabbing his mouth with a napkin after supping oysters. “Can I help?”

“Is the branzino good here?” she says, “I've never tried it.”

D'avin stands behind her, intimidating Zimas's entourage, a charmless line-backer type, no older than twenty, and a woman with massive gold rings around her neck and fingernails that could take out an eyeball from across the room.

“Okay, Okay, I get the picture,” says Zimas, snapping his fingers at the waiter for a new napkin. “You accost me at the dinner table because you know I won’t risk making a scene and having my membership suspended. Slow clap, badge-bunnies, slow clap.”

“You’re my only option, Petro. Rampersaud’s dead. Teoh’s pissed. And I don’t want to tangle with her again. Way too many illegal burglar alarms.”

“Not the kind of girl you bring home to Mom,” adds D’avin. “Then again,” he shrugs, “Mom's not the kind of girl you bring home either.”

Dutch continues. “You and your little Hullen suck-buddies took something that belongs to me and I want it back.”

“Dutch,” says D’avin, his voice a low growl, “a word.”

She steps away from Zimas and bows her head, slightly annoyed. “What is it?”

“Zimas isn’t Hullen, which means I won’t be able to,” he flicks his head to the side, “you know—”

“You’ve got ass-hole radar now?” says Dutch.

“I just put a little heat on, see if they push back. Bet you anything you want, the Beige Brigade aren’t either.”

“Hey, don’t knock beige,” Line-backer overhears them, adjusting his coat testily, “it’s the average colour of the universe.”

Dutch draws her side-arm and stuns him discretely in the foot. “It’s called camel, actually.” Line-backer slumps into the velvet banquette. She turns to D’avin. “You were right.”

“Don’t act so surprised,” he says.

It’s not a hundred percent clear if Zimas is angry about the sneaky assault, or in love with Dutch’s dick-energy. Fingernails cocks her pistol slowly under the table.

“Oh, do calm your tits down,” Dutch says, “if I was gonna haul you away, I'd have done it already. No, I've a proposition.”

“Throw in a tussle with that one,” Zimas looks at D'avin, “and it's a done deal.”

“You haven't heard what it is yet,” frowns Dutch.

“You couldn't handle me anyway,” says D'avin. He picks something off a passing waiter's tray. “Is this kosher? Because the menu says this is kosher, but I don't think it is.” The waiter just looks at him blankly and quickens his pace.

Dutch turns back to Zimas. “You have something I want, and I have the power to make sure you never do business on Qresh again. They're really into appearances around here and getting arrested in the middle of one of their most exclusive restaurants is going to look really bad. Not to mention parading you past Mayor Alzarian, who's downstairs losing pitifully at aquarius as we speak. Come to think of it, he's already in quite a bad mood.”

“I'm listening.” Zimas manages to look both irritated and aroused.

“There were two items missing from Khlyen’s inventory on Arkyn, a box and the key to open it. I want them. You want your mutual sack-scratching relationship with Qresh and your oxygen privilege to continue. So stop pissing around and hand them over, before I lose patience and get creative with your man-parts.”

Zimas’s expression changes and he touches his ear. “Dani,” he says to his other body-man hanging out in the kitchen.

“Don't bother,” says Dutch, “he's taking a nap in the bouillabaisse.”

“Shit.” Zimas's hand flutters along the edge of his jacket.

 _“Upper left pocket,”_   D'avin whispers unnecessarily in her comms.

“The key, pretty please,” Dutch beckons with her hand, “or I'll have to take it by force, and you won't like that.”

Zimas pulls a gun and Fingernails stands to her full height, clicking jewelled digits.

“Everyone's a hero.” D’avin rolls his eyes, draws his sidearm and covers Dutch. Someone notices that their conference has taken a turn. Diners flee. Chairs scrape back in shock.

“So much for low-key,” says Dutch.

“It was good while it lasted,” says Zimas, checking the exits.

“Nope,” says D'avin in response to Fingernails’ darting to the right, “nobody moves until this transaction is complete.”

Zimas finally loses patience, aims and shoots at D'avin, but misses and hits the window instead. It smashes into a thousand shards.

Dutch swipes the handle of a gold fork and it flips up from the table and embeds in Zimas's gun hand before the tinkling glass shards have even hit the ground.

D’avin disarms Nails, tossing her pistol away across the dining room floor, but she slaps his side-arm down and delivers a devastating blow to his abdomen.

“Rude.” D'avin skids back, winded, and rushes her again.

Zimas protects his injured hand, fork sticking out at a disquieting angle. His gun is missing in action, so Dutch hurdles the table and plants both feet in his throat. He reels back and flounders into the plush banquette next to Line-backer. She kneels on his chest and helps herself to the contents of his breast pocket. Her prize, the key, shines dull silver in the candle light.

D'avin, meanwhile, has his hands full with Nails, but still manages to catch a glimpse of the key and Dutch’s triumph. Nails parries his attempts to restrain her again and again, much to D’avin’s frustration. “Dutch,” he says, recovering from a spinning back-fist, “I think she’s an actual ninja.”

“Don't be such a wimp,” says Nails, “that was just a little love tap.”

Dutch attempts to climb off Zimas's torso and gives him a slap to the face and a knee to the groin when he tries to put his good hand on her butt.

D’avin weaves past Nails' next move, receiving a scratch to the larynx from her sparkly press-ons, then grabs one of her neck rings and pulls her face sharply into the nearby table. Her skull jounces off and she finally slumps unconscious. “And that's why I don't wear jewellery,” he says, panting. He retrieves his weapon and stuns her a couple times for good measure.

Turns out, Zimas has some moves of his own, and rolls under the table, sweeping out Dutch's feet.

She flips onto her back, stung by the hard landing and the shame of being caught out, still grasping the key. Zimas kicks it out of her hand and it sails out of the broken window.

“No!” she yells, clawing the floor.

D'avin runs and dives off the balcony after it.

“D'av—” she starts, as if he'll somehow be able to reply, stumbling to the edge just in time to see the splash of seawater sixty feet below. She scrapes herself up and roars after Zimas. “What have you done?”

But he’s on the stairs already, weaving past people who bend back, unwilling to get involved. “Thank-you. Gotta run. Be sure to tip your wait-staff.”

Dutch pauses only to pick up D’avin’s discarded side-arm, holstering it before running to the stairs. Even by vaulting several of the handrails and missing all but every fifth step, it still takes too long to get to level one.

“RAC agent, get out of the way,” she yells, clearing the casino with her weapon, “Petro Zimas, you are locked and served for non-payment of multiple traffic violations!”

“Wow,” says an older lady, “they really take those red lights seriously.”

Zimas skids around card tables and upsets a hologrammatic croupier in his desperation to evade Dutch.

She stuns him twice in the chest and once in the head. Gamblers push each other out of the way. Poker chips scatter as Zimas’s face hits the carpet.

“Dude,” says a heavily made-up young man, looking down at Zimas's hand-fork, “you should really put some ice on that.”

Dutch allows herself three heaving breaths and then runs like never before.

D’avin.

That's all she can think.

She arrives at the edge of the boardwalk just in time to see a throng gossiping. Pushing through, she dithers back and forth in front of the spot where he went in, hands in her hair from panic. There's no sign of him as she scans the water. The depths are murky, and the sky wears a half-lit Leith, which shimmers over the surface and does nothing to help.

“Lucy,” she touches her comm-patch, “how long has he been under?”

 _“One hundred and seventy-nine seconds,”_   says Lucy in her ear.

A smartly dressed man with a goatee joins her. “Who's in there?”

“My partner,” she says, stricken, “I dropped something.”

“So he jumped four storeys?” The man looks up at the broken window.

“Apparently.” She doesn't want to talk to Goatee, but he’s undeterred by her acidity.

“Should I call the guards?” he says.

More people come out of the casino, moving around her. “Not like this,” she breathes, gripping the edge of the boardwalk. A cold breeze gives the water a rash and there are no signs of life. She starts to hold her breath.

 _“Two hundred,”_   says Lucy.

Resort staff arrive on the scene. “What happened?” says one of them, but she ignores them.

“This lady's partner went into the water,” says Goatee, “it was a long fall.”

“Come on, Big D,” she says quietly to herself. “Lucy, how deep is he?”

_“D'avin is no longer in range of my sensors.”_

“Vitals?”

_“There are igneous rocks between me and his present location.”_

“Get the equipment,” one of the staff finally says to a colleague, “call the guards. And a doctor.” His face is like stone. The onlookers hush, realising the gravity of the situation.

Dutch's new friend Goatee puts an arm around her shoulders. “It's going to be alright.”

“No, it's not,” she looks up at him, eyes wet, “I promised his brother I'd take care of him. Lucy, how long—”

_“Two-hundred thirty-one seconds.”_

The sea is exceptionally still except for the gentle undulating of the Leith-tide. She doesn't know what to do. They never planned for this. She sits back on the board-walk, bereft.

D’avin breaks the surface, gasping and reaching for the edge.

“Ha!” Goatee emits triumphantly.

Dutch grabs the back of D'avin's jacket and hauls him in. Other people help, and together they collapse onto the deck. D'avin gulps air, rolling onto his back.

“I hate you,” she sobs, face too close to his.

“Hate you more,” he laughs, dragging in oxygen.

“What were you thinking?” She grasps his jacket as if to pummel him into the boards.

He holds something up between them, a small device with the key attached. “Electromagnet,” he says, “thought he might try something like that.”

იტი

“Don’t you ever do that again.” Dutch marches into Lucy’s hold and dumps their stuff on a work-bench. “Zimas got away. He’s going to warn Luketic.”

D’avin pulls off one of his boots and empties seawater and pebbles onto the cargo deck. “What are you complaining about? You got your trinket. I thought it was important to you.”

“This thing,” she holds up the key, “is not more important than you drowning.”

“I knew exactly what I was doing,” he says, “I cased the joint well in advance, and if I hadn’t acted right away it would’ve been lost forever.”

“We could’ve just gotten a bigger magnet.”

“The salt would’ve eroded the delicate etching. If you want, I can throw it back in there, where I left my calm.”

She looks at the key. He’s right, damn it, the surface is oxidising. She points it at him. “Next time, we discuss unscheduled cliff-dives beforehand. What if something happened to you? How would I explain it to John?”

“I know the limitations of my own body, Dutch. I know I can hold my breath underwater for five minutes. I know I can hold onto a ledge for less time before my fingers seize up and my muscles betray me. Just like you know how much torture you can take, or how long you can go without sustenance.” He watches her face cycle through a hundred emotions, all of them bad. “This carcass is my livelihood. I wouldn’t do it if it was that big a risk.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better about watching you disappear into a bottomless ocean.”

Shirt comes off. “Why are you so upset about this? It’s not a big deal, it’s just—” then he understands, changes tone of voice. “You can’t swim, can you?”

She chews the inside of her own lip before answering. “There weren’t any pools on my planet. Water’s scarce.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because it’s not the kind of thing that comes up in casual conversation,” she crosses her arms over her chest, “oh, by the way, do not add water, otherwise it’ll flail around like a demented sloth before sinking to certain death. Don't look at me like that.”

“You’re really pretty for a demented sloth.” He tries to suppress his mirth as she whacks him with his own sodden jacket.

“It’s not just the diving.” She turns away as he undoes his belt. “We’re in negative equity.”

“What was Zimas’s warrant anyway?”

“Level one. Parking tickets.”

He laughs, sitting down to tug off his soaking wet trousers. “That’s barely out of double figures. How much working capital do we have after paying for the window?”

“Three hundred.”

“Shit.”

“We’d better do some fours, maybe even a five. There’s no way I’m dipping into my retirement fund, not to find Hullen.” She looks at him sideways and he’s just standing there in underwear. “They’re not taking that from me too.”

He’s shivering now, stoops down to scoop up his soggy clothes, stuffs them in a plastic bag. “Gonna take a shower.”

She watches him climb the ladder barefoot. The shrapnel scars on his back are fully healed now and she’s surprised to realise she’s disappointed, thinking he might’ve saved one as a memento.

იტი

Hugging John’s pillow makes it worse.

She takes the key out of her pocket and examines it closely, wondering if it’s worth risking their lives for. It’s big, about the size of an ID card, and finely wrought with complex channels and artefacts, seems too big for one of Khlyen’s red boxes.

She feels his presence before she sees or hears him. “If you’re here to deconstruct my leadership techniques, Jaqobis,” she rolls over in bed, “I’m not in the mood.”

“No, no, I just wanted to give you this.” He throws her something from the doorway, a heat pad.

“How did you—” she begins, catching it, then catching on. He knows her cycle. “Oh.”

“I also do ice-cream,” he counts on his fingers, “puppies, where available, and shoulders to cry on. Haven't got any painkillers at the moment 'cause some bitch took my stash. But I don’t suppose you want any of those right now, probably just want to sulk about Zimas.”

“I’m not sulking.”

“Right.”

“I’m not.”

“Well that’s for you,” he nods at the heat pad, “I don’t need it back.”

“Thanks.” She’s not sure if she should be grateful or angry. This is either incredibly compassionate or annoyingly presumptuous. She’s not sure how she feels about it yet, but he looks so bloody smug. She places it under her belt in the approximate location of her ovaries and feels immediate relief.

“Can I get you tea,” he gestures with open arms, “sympathy, cyanide?”

“This is fine. You may go now.” Gods, she hates him sometimes, he’s so, so, so—

Nice.

“Also, sex helps,” he says, leaving. Then he turns back and points at her. “Not with me, just to clarify. I didn’t mean with me. I’m just going to—” and he’s gone.

იტი

When she wakes from her nap, D’avin is sitting at the dining table cleaning the weapons. “I don’t need special treatment,” she says, sleeves pulled down over her hands.

“I know,” he says, polishing. He’s annoyingly chirpy for some reason.

“You’d be cranky too if you had a homicidal uterus.”

“Why don’t you just punch me in the dick and we can be miserable together.”

“Ha-ha.” She heads for the fridge.

“If you’re going downstairs, would you mind getting me the other bottle of gun oil? This one’s nearly run out.”

She takes her cold bottle of algae brew down to the hold, grumbling to herself with every step on the ladder. When she gets there, her playlist is playing, and Lucy has set the lights to low. D'avin has filled the bathtub and put the nice towels out. Since they don’t have any candles, he’s substituted chemical lights.

How dare he be so tolerant and perceptive? It’s enough to make her sick. And the worst thing is, he’s probably done this for lots of other women. Not that she’s the jealous type. But why is she so damn angry about him bringing Sabine peaches, for tree's sake? She's the one who pushed him into her arms in the first place.

“Lucy, what’s D’av doing now?” She puts her drink on the edge of the bathtub, trailing her fingers in the water.

_“He’s exactly where you left him, Dutch.”_

“Tell him thanks. No, scrap that. Tell him I hate him, and this doesn’t make him right.”

She takes off her clothes and piles her hair on top of her head, securing it with a single pin. The water is just right, just a little too hot, and she can feel all her frustrations ebbing away as she slides a hand between her legs. Sex doesn’t have to be with a partner, and she imagines the tense muscles of his forearms as he reassembles the weapons, arching her back and running her free hand over her chest.

იტი

“Is that shoulder still on offer?” She lingers at the threshold of the mess, still damp and smelling fresh in a black sweater-dress.

“Hey,” he looks up, “you seem more yourself.” The weapons are nowhere to be seen and he is now playing a stupid game on his device.

She sinks into the chair next to him and rests her chin on his shoulder. “I can’t lose you too,” she says to his neck. He still has the hench-woman's nail scratch on his throat.

“Okay.” He puts the PDD down, taking her hand instead. “I think I know what this is about. Work head off. Time for the ugly shit. We’ll put a pin in what happened today and leave it over there for a bit—”

“Where is he, D’av?”

“I don’t know.”

“What’s he doing?”

“I don’t know,” he says again, even more honestly.

“I just want him to come back.”

“I know.”

“He should be here.”

“He needs time.”

“He said he needed space.”

“Yeah, I get that—”

“From me. I’ve been smothering him—”

“No, you haven’t—”

“I pushed him away.”

“It’s not you. He loved her. We have to try to understand that.”

The mention of Pawter brings Dutch out of her narcissism with a sharp jolt. She removes herself from his shoulder and picks up his device. “What is this anyway?”

“It's supposed to put your brain into theta waves,” he says, showing her how to play it, “preps you for sleep.”

She has a go, but can't be bothered and puts it down again. D'avin gets up to make tea.

“D'avin, I need to tell you something,” she says and her voice breaks. He turns, spoon in hand. “I took one of your pills.”

“You—”

“And I never want you to take it again, do you hear me?”

“Okay.” He looks down and the night-lighting catches his eyelashes.

“We're doing this together. If you wake up, you wake up. I'll be there and we'll talk about it. No matter how painful it is.”


	5. Out of the Darkness, Into the Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Khlyen’s key now in hand, all Dutch needs is the box. While searching a barren scrap-yard moon, Team Awesome Force encounter one of their most eccentric adversaries yet, and the resulting adventure leads them to even bigger revelations.
> 
> Soundtrack for this chapter is 'Crash and Burn', by Angus and Julia Stone.
> 
> Warning for dismemberment and burning alive of bad guys.

* * *

 

იტი

 _“It takes your breath and it'll leave you blind,_  
_And now, open your eyes and see,_  
_What we have made is real.”_  —ELO

იტი

  
Alvis’s herbs and the brain-game do the trick for a while, but on the fifth night, he makes noises that should never come out of a human.

“Hey!” she says, straddling his chest, holding his arms down. “Who am I? What’s my name? D’av!”

His eyes are open, seeing yet not seeing, and he breathes hard until he gasps, “Dutch.” He swallows as if it hurts, confused and sweaty, finally focusing on her face.

“Where are you?”

“Home.”

“Where’s home?” she says, not entirely convinced it’s the real him.

“Lucy, your ship.”

Satisfied, she lets go of his wrists. “Sorry,” she says, “had to be sure you wouldn’t attack.”

He twists within her thighs, reaching for water on the nightstand, and takes a gulp. “Safe-word,” he says, breathing returning to normal, so she climbs off.

“You sounded like a slaughtered animal.” She chooses the edge of the mattress for her perch. “Was it your men?”

He shakes his head, still distraught. “You were falling, and I couldn’t get to you in time. Can’t remember the rest.”

“Still, it helps to talk about it.”

“Really?” he says. “Does it really help? ‘Cause this doesn’t feel helpful. This just feels like shit.”

How she wants to just snatch this pain away from him, stop it in its tracks. His residual fear glistens in the half-light of ship's night. She can see the whites of his eyes and his sweat. “Might be worth re-considering the drugs.”

"No," he says, freshly adamant, "I said I would do this, and I will. Never threw a fair fight."

“Maybe you're right. This is the first time you haven’t dreamt about blood on your hands.” She cups his jaw. “This is healing. This is good.”

He looks at his PDD, then flops back into bed, trying not to make a big deal out of his discomfort at her touch. “Two hours ‘til sun-rise. I won’t get back to sleep now.”

“Then we’ll look at the stars and resist the temptation to get breakfast-drunk.”

იტი

He’s giving the punchbag uppercuts when she returns, knees up to keep it in check.

“I don’t think it’s got balls, D’av.” She leans on the work-bench to take her sky-scraper heels off, tossing them into the dress-up box.

“How’d it go with Jeter?” he says, panting from the cool-down and releasing his knuckles from tape.

“Peace of cake. Poison ring, plink-plink-fizz, one Deklan Jeter on ice and five G in the bank.”

“Nice work. Does that mean we can afford to eat now?”

“If you’re good.” She strips the detachable skirt off her ballgown revealing a cat-suit underneath.

“Now I really wanna know how it went,” he laughs.

“Care to dance?”

“Sure—” he starts, but she slams a palm strike into his solar plexus. “Ooh. You wanna play dirty. I can go for that. Not the kidneys, though, don’t wanna spend the rest of the day pissing blood.”

“I’ve been thinking about Luketic,” she says as they spar.

“Yeah?” D’avin dodges several high kicks to the head.

“Why would Rampersaud tell us the orchids were valuable?”

“Showboating?” He hooks her ankle and dumps her in slow motion onto the roll-mats.

“Because—” She gets him in a head and thigh-lock combo. “Argh—they're of so little consequence he could afford to use them to deflect us from the real item of value, while still making sure it ended up in the hands of the highest bidder.”

“Clever.” He extricates himself by digging her between the ribs.

“Easy tiger—” She laughs as he bear-hugs her round the waist. It feels nice, like a corset. He squeezes tighter and she notices him breathe in the perfume of her hair. “He knew we'd try to sell them to the top collector.”

“Don't say Romwell. I still owe him a rock.”

“It's not Romwell.” She contorts herself, arching back to try and kick him in the crotch. “But I have an idea how we can use it to get to Luketic.”

“Do tell.” He releases her slightly, aware that her foot is dangerously close to the family jewels.

She pulls a fist to his nose at the last second. “I need you to call for back-up first.”

იტი

“Nice work on the Jeter warrant, baby killjoys.” Fancy strides into Lucy’s lounge. “Think we can finally take the training wheels off?”

“Why can’t you just be nice?” D’avin wrinkles his nose in distaste. “Agreeable, y’know, like ponies or cake?”

“That’s my gimmick, Jaqobis. What? Don’t tell me you don’t have one. Ah, you could be the blue Planet Protector. What would that make Dutch?”

“Sick of your bullshit.” Dutch sweeps in with Alvis. “Step away from the D’av.” She takes the orchids out of the pot, exposing a tight root ball, and hands it to Alvis who cradles it in his hands.

“Oh,” D’avin says slowly, “I get it now. Hot Guys Holding Plants.”

“Bye-bye.” Dutch smashes the orchid pot on the floor.

“Hey!” says D’avin, but it’s too late.

“Bad day at work, dear?” says Alvis.

Something glistens in the debris and Dutch nudges pieces aside with one foot.

“Diamonds?” says D’avin, looking at Alvis for approval.

“Silicon carbide data fragments,” says Dutch, “much more valuable than diamonds. The clay masked the signal, but I had Lucy scan for biological contaminants. Where there’s a pot, there’s a potter.”

Alvis taps something into the computer. “DNA belongs to one Celestino ‘Cell’ Mendoza, entered the RAC a hundred and twenty five years ago. He’s a six. Must be.”

Fancy puts the crystals together, taking the one D’avin picks up, and they gather around and watch the hologram spark to life.

“What does that remind you of?” says Dutch.

“Plasma map,” says Fancy.

“Lucy,” says Dutch, “cross reference the points on this stellar cartography with ours. Tell me what’s missing.”

 _“Calculating,”_   says Lucy. Co-ordinates come up on the screen. One of the new points is near the Quad.

“You think he can lead us to Luketic?” says D’avin.

“I’m counting on it,” she says, heading for the cock-pit, “Lucy, wheels up, we’re off to Xanadu.”

იტი

Meanwhile, on Xanadu, a caped figure hunches over a pool of green, deep underground, and feels a disturbance in its surface.

იტი

“Fancy, with me,” Dutch barks, loading up with equipment, “Soldier Boy with me. Als, take care of Lucy.”

“Good hunting.” Alvis heads back to the cock-pit. “See you on the other side.”

“He knows how to fly her?” D’avin takes his long gun and secures it on its lanyard.

“He’s our extraction plan,” she says as they walk down the ramp, “can’t rely on him to prevail in a confrontation. He’s not a fighter.”

Fancy follows. “You mean you don’t want him to get hurt.”

“She means none of your goddamn business,” says D’avin, getting into the driver’s seat of the rambler.

“I mean stick to the plan,” says Dutch. “Play nice, you two, and there’ll be buns for tea.”

“What did you mean by fraternity?” says Fancy later, as D’avin drives them in the direction of the local population.

“Mendoza, Rampersaud, Keoh and Luketic grew up together.” Dutch is on point, bracing her hips against the roll-bars, and she’s jumpy, scouting for threats in the barren landscape. “Amongst others we haven't found yet.”

“Why does everyone’s face change when we mention Luketic?” D’avin turns down another dusty road. “What are they afraid of?”

“Guess we’ll find out soon.” Dutch changes stance and aims her weapon into the distance. “Hostile at twelve o’clock.”

D’avin pulls up, takes out a scope and checks the horizon. “S’just an old guy with a barrow full of what looks like—” he squints and adjusts the optics, “—broken toasters.”

Dutch relaxes somewhat, and they resume their journey. “This moon’s a community of scrappers. It’s all frontier engineering and the tech-screment of humanity.”

“Johnny would love it,” says D’avin.

“What’s that other name on the list?” Fancy continues his quiz.

“Zimas?” says D’avin. “A poor facsimile of a human being. They’re not all Hullen.”

“Original Zimas must’ve had children before he was turned,” Dutch thinks out-loud, “now his grandson’s part of the Fraternity.”

The old man Dutch almost shot crosses their path and scurries away as quickly as his barrow of junk will allow, clearly unused to strangers. The trio soon come in sight of a market settlement, all ragged tents and corrugated iron and dirty children. They park outside the town limits.

“Anti-theft device.” Dutch hooks her bag off the back seat of the rambler as they get out. “Don’t trust the locals.”

“Tracker shrapnel?” says D’avin, eliciting a frown from Fancy and a smirk from Dutch.

“Was thinking more like fifty thousand volts,” she says.

“Fifty thousand volts it is.” D’avin flicks a switch on the dash.

Dutch slings her bag onto her back. “Now, are you sure I’m safe to leave you two alone together, or will I need to break out the hose?”

“I promise we won’t antagonise each other,” says Fancy, “we’re professionals.”

Dutch eyes him like she doesn't believe it. “I’m getting us a guide, you guys keep an eye on the perimeter.”

“Can you get me one of those souvenir tea-spoons too,” D’avin calls after her, and she looks back, smiling over one shoulder, “heard the flag for Xanadu is a used dental dam.”

Dutch turns back to the town, but he can tell she’s laughing.

“Smooth, Jaqobis,” says Fancy, kicking the dust, “real smooth. Did you wait a whole day after your brother went missing before jumping into her bed?”

D’avin checks his comms are off before answering. “Just because you're not Hullen anymore,” he growls, “doesn't mean I can't hurt you.”

“And that's your solution to everything, is it, pummel it with your fists? All I'm saying is, you don’t want everything to fall to pieces by the time he comes back. I'm just being pragmatic.”

“For your information, we're not sleeping together. And even if we wanted to, we promised we wouldn't scratch that itch. Not that it's any of your business. Now stick to the brief. Get in, get dirty, get out.”

 _“Dutch, D’avin,”_   comes Alvis’s voice in his ear, _“you reading me?”_

He switches his comms back on. “Loud and clear.”

_“There’s a magnetic storm brewing a couple klicks from here, I don’t like Lucy’s chances, you might have to wait for extraction.”_

“Bad air, just what we need right now,” he says, “Dutch, you copy that?”

იტი

“This is the worst good idea you've ever had,” says D’avin, lying in the ditch and checking out Mendoza’s compound through the scope, “by a country mile.”

“No,” says Dutch indignantly beside him, “it’s the best bad idea, and I measure them by the number of enemy brown trousers.”

“Sorry to piss on your parade, princess,” says Fancy, “but Hullen don’t actually need to take a shit. Or eat for that matter.”

“Thanks for that,” D’avin blinks, “fascinating nugget of information.”

“Just go.” Dutch puts a helping hand on Fancy’s back. “Before he does something I regret.”

“Simultaneous front and rear entry, my favourite.” Fancy picks himself up and slinks off into the darkness to scout the other side of the compound. They watch him until he is no longer visible. The only light is the light of the stars and a faint red glow from the settlement a few miles away.

“He seems like a nice fellow.” Shye, their guide, adjusts the sand-goggles around his neck and tightens his scarf to better accommodate the damp of a desert evening. He’s proved indispensable so far, explaining that the compound is just the top level of a deep underground bunker belonging to the erstwhile terraformers, and that no-one will go near the place for fear of mysterious disappearances.

“He’s getting better,” says D’avin, “kinda grows on you. Dutch, Mendoza’s men don’t show any signs of moving soon. Want me to—”

“Can’t risk anyone raising the alarm.” Dutch aims at them under night vision nonetheless. “We bide our time, see what Fancy brings back.”

“This reminds me of the time I was in prison on Prillon,” says Shye.

“You had to get a chatty one, didn’t you,” says D’avin, looking at Dutch. She smiles.

“Spent most of my forty-one years in prison,” Shye continues, “but I knew I had to grow up some time. Maybe even stop the drink.”

“Climbing the social ladder then,” says Dutch, “working for the likes of us. No surprise my recruitment speech did the trick.”

“Uh,” says Shye, “you kidnapped me, remember.”

“We lightly kidnapped you.” D’avin passes around ration packs from the bag.

“No thanks,” Dutch says, eyes still on Mendoza’s guards.

“You have to eat.”

“I’m too nervous.”

“Aw,” says Shye forlornly, “you guys take care of each other, I can tell. I never had that. Been a loner all my life. Me takes care of me, no-one else. Can’t be betrayed that way.”

“We have another partner,” says D’avin, food in his hands, “my brother, but he's on sabbatical. We've kinda lost our mojo without him.”

“Don't tell him everything.” Dutch glares at him as much as is possible in the dark.

“What?” says D’avin. “It's of zero consequence.”

“If you want my advice—” Shye begins, mouth full of protein bar.

“We don't,” the other two say in unison.

“I was going to say,” Shye chews and swallows, “in Keysan Eyeban’s latest self-help seminar, they talked about taking a step back from the situation and really being present, you know, paying attention to your inner voice. Mojo comes from mindfulness.”

“Did this seminar include advice on silencing your outer voice?” says D’avin.

Dutch nudges him. “Look.”

“What is it?”

They can see the dust cloud on the opposite horizon, glittering like a whirlwind of tiny diamonds. Dozens of tiny hillocks start to bubble up from the sand between them and Mendoza’s compound. From each sand-hill emerges something plant-like, poking through the centre, whipped by the beginnings of the magnetic storm.

“Sunless orchids.” Dutch flashes D'avin a smile as each plant blooms into a flower. “Exceptionally rare.”

Shye nods in agreement. “They have no leaves, only flowers. They only come out when conditions are optimal. The planetoid must be at its zenith, and the atmosphere must be charged with ions before they release their pollen and then die.”

“D’you think this is where Rampersaud got his orchids?” says D’avin.

“Not sure,” Dutch frowns, “you couldn’t keep a sunless orchid in a pot. They’re delicate. One touch and they die.”

“This,” says Shye, taking a swig from his hip-flask, “is a very auspicious occasion.” He offers D’avin a drink.

“I’m good, thanks.”

“Quiet,” says Dutch suddenly, “they’re making their move.”

D’avin looks, and Mendoza’s Hullen are changing guard. “Guess this is goodbye, Shye.”

Shye grabs him in an elaborate handshake. “This means we’re cousins now.”

“Great,” says D’avin with the least enthusiasm imaginable.

"Best kidnappers I ever had," says Shye.

“Go back to your village,” says Dutch, anxious to get going before the opportunity passes, “if the information you gave us checks out, we’ll return and pay you. If not—”

She doesn’t get to finish because Shye is suddenly wracked with spasms, coughing and shaking until he falls to the ground unconscious. Pink foam extrudes from his mouth.

“Shit.” D’avin picks up the flask. “Poison.”

Dutch swipes it out of his hand and it thuds into the sand. She leans forward and sniffs Shye’s face. “Manchineel,” she says. “Highly toxic. No cure. Melts your digestive system from the inside.”

“Dutch!” D’avin shouts, snapping to his feet.

Several vehicles surround them and they are blinded by the headlights.

იტი

“In the beginning were only the stars, nuclear fission spinning in an infinity of chaos.” Mendoza wheels Dutch down the corridor on a gurney, his face hovering above her beatifically as he continues his monologue, his long starry cape flowing out behind him. “Then Pandora opened her jar and matter spilled forth, forming the atoms, planets, moons, asteroids, comets and finally, the elements of air and water, spirit and soil. But very soon the universe will return to chaos, and we will become once again, that magnificent cloud of nuclear material burning in the sky, for we are all made of star-dust.”

“Finished?” she says. “Great, now that you’ve got that off your chest, you can tell me where the box is, or where Luketic is, or both, I’m not picky.”

Mendoza’s face falls when he realises she’s not impressed. “Why would I do that?”

“Worth a try.” The restraints are too tight for her usual get-out. This bastard knows what he’s doing.

He wheels her into a grey room with lights on the ceiling like an operating theatre and parks her next to D’avin, who is trussed up in the same manner. “Praise the trees,” she says, attempting to grasp his fingers.

Mendoza wheels her a little further away so that they can’t touch. “Naughty, naughty little mice, no nookie for you this fine evening.”

“D’av,” she hisses, “show him a magic trick.”

“Can’t,” he says, “tranquilliser. And even if I could muster the energy, you really wanna risk destroying your only lead?”

“Al,” she whispers instead, “are you reading me? Lucy?”

Nothing.

“I already tried that,” hisses D’avin. “He removed our comms.”

“What are you two love-birds whispering about?” Mendoza spins D’avin’s gurney and stops it sharply. “I do love a bit of gossip.”

“How about this for gossip?” Dutch seethes at him. “When I get out of this, I’m going to slit your throat, pull your tongue out through the hole and pin it to your chest like a frigging campaign rosette.”

“Ooh,” Mendoza straightens up, pretending to be stung, and strokes her hair, “that kind of talk is not becoming of a lady of your status.” She looks at D’avin accusingly and Mendoza, sensing their exchange, reassures her. “Oh, don’t worry, this one’s locked up tighter than a Qreshi razor-clam, and loyal as a puppy. That may change after I apply this, though.” He picks up a convoluted internal examination speculum from the medical tray at his side. Winding the handle makes it open up like the cork-screw from hell. It would make even the most seasoned gynaecologist’s eyes water.

“Just so you know,” D’avin says as Mendoza stalks around them, “information given under duress is always highly suspect.”

“D’av,” says Dutch, “last time you were tortured you gave the guy everything he wanted almost instantly.”

“But in my defence,” he tests the restraints, “I was pretty unstable.”

“So, the takeaway is,” Mendoza looks at each of them in turn, pouting, “torture works?”

“Depends who’s doing the torturing,” says Dutch.

“Before you start,” D’avin turns his head away as Mendoza comes toward him with another hypodermic, “I really need to know, what is it with all the capes? ‘Cause I feel like I need to try one on now.”

Mendoza injects them both with the needle then holds up his sparkly cloak like the wings of an eagle. “Am I celestial now?” he says, and makes a theatrical exit.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Dutch turns her head to D’avin.

“Nut-jobs are just the worst.”

იტი

“Whatever he gave us,” says D’avin, coming to, “I wanna know what it is so I can ban it. I’m gonna have one helluva hangover tomorrow.”

“It’s not the drugs I’m worried about.” Dutch has been awake for a while, and she’s glad he’s finally conscious. They’re not in the torture chamber anymore, and there’s not enough light to make out detail, but she can tell they’re at the bottom of a circular tower, probably part of the terraformer’s O2 store, or even a munitions silo. They are chained back-to-back against the central pillar, their arms reaching just far enough to encompass the concrete shaft.

“Where’s Fancy?”

“We can’t count on him. He may already be dead.” As she speaks, she encounters the resistance of palpitations. Shit. “Tranq’s wearing off, but it was masking something else. Poison’s making our hearts beat too fast. Probably digitalis.”

“So this is his torture?” says D’avin. “Let us feel it increase until our hearts explode?”

“And hope we give away our deepest darkest secrets in the meantime.”

“This is where you do something clever with one of your potions.”

“I would, only I don’t exactly have an apothecary’s store at my disposal, and these cuffs are welded on.”

He is silent for a while, and she can hear the drips of water down the side of the silo. “If this is it,” he finally says, “the day I die, I’m glad it’s with you.”

“Huh?”

“That didn’t come out the way I meant. I meant, if I have to die, then—”

“You know what? Save it for later. I gotta figure a way out.”

“There might not be a later, Dutch. The poison will work before either one of us gets a hand out of these cuffs.”

Then she remembers something. “Count the beats. It slows down your heart rate for meditation.”

“What?” he says.

“It really works. Ask Alvis. Something about feedback.”

“I can’t reach my neck or my other hand.”

“Take mine.” They manage to grasp hands even though they are bound at an awkward angle. He feels for her vein and she, his. They begin to count out loud—one, two, three—and before long they sync up, slow down. “What do people say to each other when they're sure they're gonna die?”

“Dutch, listen, there’s something I—”

But she interrupts him. “What's your biggest regret?”

He takes a breath. “You first.”

She wastes a few seconds thinking. Water continues to drip down the walls. All she can hear is his breathing, feel his pulse slowing. “In my harem, when I'd been there about four years, there was a girl. Safiyeh.”

“She was your friend.” Although she can’t see him, she imagines D’avin nodding in understanding.

“She was my first and only friend. She was an orphan, unlike me, so there was no-one missing her on the outside, and I became her family. If I didn't get any food, she'd share hers and if she didn't get any, vice versa. She was so beautiful.” She pauses for breath and squeezes her eyes shut against the pain in her heart. “She wasn’t like me. It was like she didn’t mind being there, and I latched on to that, as if she could give me strength. I used to watch her, swinging high on the calyptum tree in the courtyard, and I used to think, if only I could feel that free, or that powerful—But what I didn’t realise then, is that she swung bravely and held her head high because she knew she was marked for death. I knew I would have to fight her eventually, if she survived all the other tests, but we agreed that we wouldn’t fight each other for the prince’s heart, if it came to that. Neither of us wanted to marry him. We only wanted each other. She was my whole world. So, after she’d been there for about a year and a half, we came up with a plan to escape through the water closet and down the mountain. But when the day came, there was a red box on my bed.”

“Safiyeh's name was inside.” His words tear her heart.

“Of course, I told him I wouldn't do it.” She impersonates Khlyen, “‘but it's part of your training little bird, you must learn to cut ties with everyone around you. People can't be trusted, even when you think they're your friends’. I ran to our meeting place, but she never came.”

“Shit,” D’avin breathes.

“The next day I asked matron and she said there never was a Safiyeh.”

“Gaslighting son-of-a-bitch.”

“No-one would look me in the eye, but I never doubted my sanity for a second. Later, I thought I could have done something, if only I'd never left her side. Why didn’t I fight harder?”

“You were a child.”

“You said you wanted all my ugly shit, so there it is,” a tear escapes from her left eye and she lets it run off, glad that he can’t see her, “I didn’t protect the person who meant the most to me, and she paid dearly.”

D’avin squeezes her hand, hard. “It wasn't your fault. Khlyen did that, not you. You were both victims.”

“But I can’t keep playing the victim, D’av.” She realises she is stressing her already failing heart, so she calms herself. “It’s like you said the other day, if I let it affect me, it’s like I never left.”

“If he wasn't already dead, I'd kill Khlyen for you all over again, you know that right?”

“Don't you see? I can never get away. He's in everything I ever did, he's in every part of my life now. He tried to take you away from me and I will never forgive him for that. I can't even tell him how angry I am.”

“Your heart-rate, Dutch—”

“I never made friends again, until John. He was the first person I met who wasn't part of that global conspiracy. He said he'd never leave my side, but where is he?”

“You can ask him yourself when we get out of here. We’ll go back to Lucy and he’ll be waiting for you.” D’avin’s voice catches in his throat, and she knows he doesn’t believe it.

She lets silence pass between them in the dark, the gravity of things unsaid. That it's her obsession that got them into this situation, that she feels nothing but guilt. “Tell me yours. Take my mind off dying. Leaving John, that’s your biggest regret, right?”

“Not just John.” He swallows. “There was a girl. We were supposed to be married.”

“Oh, gods,” she lets her head fall back against the concrete post, closing her eyes. “I'm so sorry, I didn't know you were betrothed to someone. Did John know?”

“He was too young to really understand relationships. Come to think of it, I don’t think he understood anything beyond how to hustle the wrong people and hot-wire vehicles.”

“Does he know why you really left?”

“He knows Dad was mad at me. I don't think he knows it was because I was covering for him.”

“You have to tell him. He deserves to know.”

“I will never tell him. It would destroy him. He was just a kid—”

“So were you,” she silences him. “Why should you be the one to take the consequences of his actions—”

“Because there was no-one else looking out for him.” His voice starts escalating. “Because my mother checked out early and Dad beat him senseless. He wouldn’t have survived. Is that what you wanted to hear? Does that make you happy? We have to protect him.” He breathes hard, pulse probably out of control, pounding in his ears and his heart threatening to burst. “We’re his only hope.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she says after a while, when her touch has calmed him, “I meant you didn’t deserve to be sold down the river. You didn’t deserve to be cut up and experimented on and made to do unspeakable things.”

“Wow.” A crack of light appears as Fancy pushes open the huge, heavy door. “That was heart-warming, you guys.”

“Yeah, my bra is literally on fire,” says Dutch, “get us out of this.”

“Antidote.” Fancy runs over and holds a small bottle to her lips. “Found it in the lab.”

“Don't bother unchaining me,” she says, “do D’av next.”

“This is like all my fantasies at once,” Fancy says as he tends to him.

D’avin sips the antidote. “How long were you listening?”

“A little while. I have to say, it was quite enlightening.”

“So glad our pain entertains you,” says D’avin, “now please tell me you have an invention that’ll cut through these cuffs.”

იტი

“We need to get our weapons back.” Dutch peers around the next corner, holding Fancy’s pistol high and ready.

Fancy looks at the layout on his PDD.

“You have the plans?” says D’avin. “How did you get the plans?”

“Scanner balls,” says Fancy.

“Those are mine,” D’avin says through gritted teeth.

“Yeah,” says Fancy, scrolling to the next level, “I took them from your hope chest.”

D’avin growls and Dutch puts an arm across his chest to keep them apart. “Our best bet is the old guard’s office on level minus-two,” she says, “that’s where I’d keep an armoury.”

Just then, a squad of Hullen guards march across the intersection. Dutch holds both men back out of sight.

“What are they guarding?” says D’avin when the coast is clear.

“The mother-lode.” Fancy looks meaningfully at Dutch. "A pool of plasma."

“And it’s not a hope chest,” D’avin says as they move off, “it’s a glory box.”

იტი

“I’m sure there’s something we can use here.” Dutch retrieves their weapons from the armoury shelves. Their bags don’t appear to have been searched yet, lying on the security desk. A screen displays the night-vision feed from their silo, now empty, and the Hullen guard she killed lies at her feet.

D’avin picks up a grenade, weighs it in his hand. “This is an MT3 Rattlesnake, illegal in all but three sectors of the J for being heinously inhumane.”

“Well, stop juggling it, then,” Dutch glares at him. “Now I know they’re not just defending a box, or even just Luketic. There’s enough to supply a small army in here. What are they planning?”

“Where is everybody?” says Fancy, pocketing a fine knife. “You don’t leave one person guarding this amount of weaponry.”

“Maybe it’s their annual booger convention.” D’avin drops the Rattlesnake into his back-pack. “This is pretty.” He takes a pristine DaCruz S6 Thunder Automatic off its rack. “Hello cutie-pie.”

“Bring that,” says Dutch, “might come in handy. Now, lets go crash a party.”

D’avin grabs ammo for the Thunder and runs after her, Fancy hot on his heels.

იტი

All three killjoys peep over the edge of the catwalk into the pit a hundred feet below. A pool of plasma, the size and shape of a Westerlyn algae cultivator, bubbles ominously and a whole congregation of Hullen, lead by Celestino Mendoza, surround it.

“Some of them have white uniforms,” whispers D’avin, “that means Black Root, right?”

“Missed a trick there,” whispers Dutch, “they don’t know their colours.”

“Colours depend on emotion,” says Fancy knowingly.

“Bet they’re shit at interior design,” says Dutch, eyes fixed on the ritual. “Now be quiet.”

“Once there was only night,” Mendoza spreads his cloaked arms wide like an old-school evangelist, and his voice echoes off the sides of the pit, “but now your eyes will be opened, now you will go into the light. Now, the laying on of hands.” He grabs an unfortunate towns-person and thrusts a stent into the back of his neck. A plasma filled hose snakes out of it and into a pump in the pool.

“We should do something,” hisses Fancy.

“Wait.” Dutch lays a hand on his arm. She knows they should try, and how hard this must be for him, but they can’t risk exposure, not yet. 

Then she turns to D’avin. “Plan?”

“Suggest we drop a T-bomb, wait to see who’s cleansed first, then pick off the rest.”

Dutch hands her vial of black toxin to Fancy. “Do the honours.”

He looks at her gratefully, snapping off the stopper and tipping it into the pool. “Bottoms up.”

Black toxin falls like rain and lands in the plasma. Soon it is all black. Mendoza doesn’t notice at first, but then he lets go of his victim and looks up. “Blasphemers!” he bellows. “After them, you fools—”

Most of the assembled Hullen collapse to the floor, cleansed, and only a couple dozen, including Mendoza, are left. Mendoza manifests an almighty temper-tantrum, hunching over and crying out like a toddler no longer allowed into the cookie jar. There is shouting and confusion below as some of the Cleansed recover, hungry for revenge, and the remaining Hullen attempt to keep them in check amid the team’s gunfire.

“Like fishing in a barrel,” says D’avin as he and Dutch pick off one after another, “hardly seems fair.”

“I’m sure you’ll get over it,” Dutch says as she reloads.

იტი

“We can’t leave them to fend for themselves,” says Fancy, panting as they reach the blast doors between them and freedom.

“And we can’t stay in here to die.” Dutch slings her weapon to her back and takes something out of her pocket. “I thought this was for the box, but it must’ve been Khlyen's front door key.”

“Try it.” D’avin leans the bag of weapons against the door.

It’s not unlike the system of bunkers under Old-Town. The doors loom large and thick, ten foot square hunks of metal cutting them off from salvation, designed to keep natural disasters out, and prisoners in. The lock is archaic, analogue and fail-safe. She inserts the key into it. Nothing happens. “Shit.”

“It’s a powered system, dingus,” says Fancy pointing to the other side, “you need a code for the mechanism, even if the lock is unlocked.”

“Don’t just stand there,” she glares at him, tipping her head at the code-pad, “do something technical.”

Fancy takes one look at her and one look back along the corridor.

“Don’t you dare go back for them—” starts D’avin, but Fancy is already sprinting off, “shit!” he says, hands on his knees in frustration.

“Alright,” says Dutch, “this is what we’re going to do; you use John’s app on that thing, and I’ll turn the key at the same time. Ready?”

იტი

Fancy is impressed with their fighting form. They’ve clearly been practising a lot. Dutch always lands on her feet, like a cat, and doesn’t hold back. D’avin always does what she says. They play off each other well and this annoys Fancy. The way they take care of each other affects him, the other Jaqobis too. It bothers him that they haven’t already self-destructed. It bothers him the way they already have a shorthand, can communicate with eyes, or a single word. _Dutch._

He makes his way down the barely lit corridor, feeling bad about leaving them. Damn, what is happening? It’s like he actually cares about those idiots. But it's more important to find the Cleansed, reassure them, explain what has happened and make sure they know how to fight their way out. They are his responsibility now. He clears a junction with his side-arm, steps cautiously into the next tunnel, deeper into the facility. It reminds him of Red Seventeen, only dark.

There are no sounds of approaching assailants, no scent, no movement of the air. It is like the place is abandoned. Then someone punches his weapon out of his hand.

“Well, well, well,” Mendoza has a knife to his throat, sniffing sharply and running his face close to Fancy’s hair, “this one’s different.”

“I’m Cleansed, dick-hole,” Fancy says, going for the knife he took from the armoury. He stabs it underhand into Mendoza’s hip and it sinks in deep, un-dead flesh closing around the blade. Mendoza drops his knife and steps back, cape flying in Fancy’s way.

Fancy fights the cape off just in time to receive a kick to the face. It’s hard, Hullen-hard, but Fancy was prepared for that. He fends off blows left, right and centre, as Mendoza gains the upper-hand. "I much prefer a blade to bullets," Mendoza sneers, "much more intimate, don't you think?" He feels around on the floor for his knife in the low lighting and lashes out, cuts Fancy in the same place he cut him, above the hip.

Searing pain flashes through Fancy's mind and he finds himself thrown to the ground. It is rare that Fancy Lee meets his match in hand-to-hand combat. "What did you do to those missing people, you disgusting reprobate?"

“What did you do to my people,” Mendoza spits, holding him down, “heretic?”

This is it, Fancy thinks, as Mendoza’s bloody knife hovers inches from his face, this is the day he stupidly dies because of a simple mistake. The wound is bleeding profusely and he’s too tired to fight Mendoza off, only keep him in stale-mate. Why, oh why did he leave the others? Hullen spittle lands like venom on his cheek, and he can see the veins in the man's eyes. Mendoza has the reek of the dead, something he supposes only the Cleansed can detect.

Then something changes. Mendoza’s face flicks to the side, confused. His eyes begin to bulge, his blood boils, and within seconds, Fancy is covered in a fountain of green plasma and brains. He chokes and pushes Mendoza off. D’avin slumps into the wall twenty feet away, exhausted. Dutch skids around the corner and stops to tend to him, but D’avin pushes her off. “Fancy.”

Fancy covers his wound with his hands as Dutch helps him up. “We can’t do this without you, idiot,” she says.

"Turns out I'm not as good at safe-cracking as exploding things," says D'avin, getting to his feet.

იტი

The power switches off just as they reach the blast doors, and they are plunged into darkness once again. “Shit, shit, shit!” Dutch whispers as loudly as is safe. The only light is the signs for the emergency procedures. Ironic, considering.

“Can’t open sesame without power,” says Fancy, sliding down the door with his hand in his jacket, rapidly pooling with blood.

“Is there another way?” says Dutch, giving him a wadded up dressing to stem the bleeding. “How did you get in?”

“All the way over the other side,” he replies, “Hullen between us and it.”

“Will this give it enough power?” D’avin holds up his PDD.

“In theory,” Fancy squints in pain, taking a handful of items out of his jacket pocket. Amongst the gum and lint and receipts is a short wire. “But it’s hard to get to.”

“You’ve got the longest arms,” says Dutch.

D’avin takes the wire and sets to work on the mechanism, popping off a panel and reaching far down into the maintenance cavity, while Dutch covers them. “Can’t get it in,” he grunts after a few abortive attempts.

“The male goes into the female, Jaqobis,” says Fancy, fading fast.

D’avin shoots him a look. “It’s like forcing an eight into a seven and a half.”

“You’d know,” Fancy coughs.

There is a sound in the distance. Gunfire. Footsteps. Multiple hostiles. They must’ve discovered Mendoza, must be fighting off the Cleansed. “They’re playing our tune, boys,” Dutch says from her corner, “time to quick-step out of here.”

“I’m trying,” says D’avin, his arm still firmly wedged inside the door mechanism.

“What are our options?” says Fancy, unholstering his side-arm shakily as the footsteps come closer, echoing off the walls.

“Marry, kiss or kill,” says D’avin, almost making contact.

“Kill,” says Dutch, “always kill.” She fires at the rapidly approaching Hullen, ducking behind her wall of safety between short bursts. She uses all of her ammo and most of Fancy and D'av's.

“Here,” Fancy chucks her the Rattlesnake grenade when there’s a convenient pause.

She arms it and throws. The grenade travels a long way down the gently sloping corridor, rolling to a stop at their feet. The Hullen guards take cover as the grenade ticks ten times and then puffs ineffectually.

Dutch removes her arm from her eyes, and the Hullen squad train their weapons back on her. “What the hells was that?” she asks D’avin, snapping her head out of enemy range.

“Foreplay,” he says, going for the contacts again, “three, two, duck.”

It’s like Ascension Day as the Rattlesnake goes boom, fireworks, fizz and electric crackle filling the corridor with purple light and cutting most of the Hullen in half.

“Get that door open now!” Dutch yells, reloading with her last mag. They are still coming, the ones that survived, and one of them, the leader she thinks, has a couple of limbs hanging off.

“Contact!” yells D’avin, and Fancy climbs stiffly to his feet.

“Try not to lose your arm,” says Fancy, turning the key.

The door starts to cycle open on its rollers and D’avin manages to extract his arm just in time.

Outside it is dawn, but they wouldn’t know it, clouds covering the local sun and the magnetic storm raging at full force. D’avin helps Fancy, shielding their faces from the flying sand, while Dutch pulls up Shye’s goggles and covers their retreat. Visibility is low and her hair is whipped into a frenzy, but she can make out three, four, maybe even five Hullen still on their tail. They fire randomly into the blizzard and some of their shots land inches from her feet. “Behind that bank,” she shouts, unsure how much the boys can hear.

They throw themselves down into the hollow, which provides relative shelter, and D’avin deposits Fancy next to her before setting up the Thunder on its tripod.

Fancy tries to raise Alvis, but all he gets is crackle. “Shit,” he says, “we have no choice but to fight.”

“On it,” says D’avin, completing the assembly of the big gun. Dutch feeds him ammunition as he lays down suppressive fire, taking a break to blow out a _phew_ at the strength of the recoil.

Dutch looks through the scope as the storm begins to let up a little. Some of the Hullen have fallen, but they’re still coming. Most of the bullets hit them in the body, not the head, so few are killed outright, but any Hullen would find it difficult to give chase when their legs have been cut off by machine-gun fire. “A dozen more out the door,” she shouts above the wind, “try a wider pattern.”

“Low on ammo,” shouts D’avin, “enough for a two second burst.”

“On my mark,” says Dutch, aiming her long weapon and holding a hand up. There is only a couple hundred yards between them and the advancing enemy now.

“What the—” Fancy looks up.

“Lucy!” says Dutch, ecstatic as the ship lands between them and the Hullen. She’s so beautiful as she braves the whirlwind and stabilises herself. Debris swirls up in a down-draft which rivals the storm itself, and she protects her crew, enemy bullets pinging safely off her shield-webbing.

“Nice move, Monkpants,” says Fancy.

Then Lucy revs her scram-jets and blasts the Hullen scum-bags into oblivion.

The three killjoys stand up and survey the scene. The wind is dropping now, so Dutch can safely remove her goggles. A dozen or so blackened and charred Hullen corpses are stuck in various poses, smoking on the sand.

“Ugh, that is, just,” D’avin searches for words, one hand shielding his eyes from the emerging dawn light, “bleak.”

იტი

“One Fancy Lee,” Dutch puts a glass with two shots of hokk in front of him, “dropped off and receiving medical attention. What about you? Are you hurt?”

“Only lightly distressed,” D’avin says, sniffing it before trying, “don’t think I’ll ever eat barbecue again.”

“Me neither,” she laughs.

“And Alvis, is he okay? That was some move he pulled back there.”

“He was fine once I’d given him a ticking off for driving Lucy into a storm.” When they’d returned to the rambler, they’d found it half buried under storm sand and three would-be thieves unconscious next to it. It always pays to be cautious, she’d said, and then went off into the town to track down Shye’s family to pay them the agreed fee and tell them what had happened. They may never know who in the town had poisoned his hip-flask or why. All that remains is the faint guilt that it might be because of them. She leans her elbows on the table. “Fancy seems happy. Soon as he's better he’s going back with a squad of the Arkyn-born to loot Mendoza’s complex and round up the Cleansed. There’s probably a shit-load of confused town-folk running around like headless chickens. Not to mention the lynch mobs.”

“Call me crazy,” says D'avin knocking back his hokk, “but I was really worried when he got stabbed.”

“Aw, are we missing him already?”

“One step at a time.”

She takes a deep breath, rights herself and takes a slim vial out of her knee pocket. “Listen, there's no right time to say this, but this is a sample of Mendoza’s plasma. I collected it when you were—”

“You want me to mind link with that?” He slides his glass along the table and takes it from her.

“Please, D’av, it’s my only chance.”

He blinks a few times. She knows he’ll do anything she asks, and she hates that. He pours the plasma into an empty glass he retrieves from the cupboard, tries it, and takes his fingers back after only the scantest contact, shaking his head. “Nope.”

“What is it?”

“Mendoza, he’s so,” he says taking a step backwards, “lost.”

She watches him stumble and find a seat, shell-shocked, and it hits her—why he can’t just delve into the mind of every Hullen they come across. It’s taking an unacceptable risk. She crouches in front of him, takes his hand, searching eyes like the darkest sea, full of the pain of the years. "I'm sorry." Her words are cautious, threaded with an apology for the reckless endangerment of his mental health. “I shouldn’t have asked you to do that.”

იტი

That night, as she brushes the sand out of her hair, she looks long and hard in the mirror and tries to see Aneela, but she just won’t materialise. She shimmers back and forth between two potential futures, the one where she and D’avin explore the relationship that could have been, had it not been for Jaeger’s intervention, and the one where she keeps him safely at arm’s-length.

Did he really dream of her falling, or was it his men? Easier to brush it away as a Freudian anxiety than have to explain, again, what he did. She wonders, not for the first time, if they were able to act in their confusion. How did he get the drop on them? Did they put up a fight? Was it easy because they trusted him, lived and worked with him for years? Their beloved Sarge. Boss. Chief.

If she went to him now, he would welcome her into his bed. She knows it. Her body aches to be filled, to feel better, and so does his.

But she can’t let this turn into one of those split-second decisions that irrevocably change the course of her life. Running away with Johnny on the turn of a coin. To kill or not to kill. Swearing fealty to Khlyen, Bellus, Joe—saying ‘I do’. If she makes the wrong choice now, there will be no going back.

“Lucy,” she says, leaning her forearms on the door of her room.

_“Yes, Dutch?”_

“Lock me in.”

_“Why?”_

“Because I said so.”

_“Locking you in your room will prevent emergency response and may have unintended consequences.”_

“I don’t want the text-book answer, Lucy, just do it.” A harder edge comes into her voice. Lucy never questions Johnny like this. She presses her body into the hard contours of the door, as if it will bring some comfort. Only a thin barrier of metal and polymer separate them. If he wakes she will hear it, perhaps his tortured cries, or more likely, she hopes, the sound of the coffee machine and the box of rainbow hoops Johnny left behind in the kitchen cupboard. She pushes herself off the door and throws herself down on the bed. “Don’t let me out until first light.”

_“Why?”_

“So that I can’t get to D’avin.”

_“Are you afraid you will hurt him?”_

“Something like that, Lucy, something like that.”


	6. Midnight Cowboy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dutch and D'avin complete a level five warrant while figuring out what to do about Luketic. However, it sets in motion a chain of events that neither of them could have predicted. Resistance comes from an unexpected source, threatening to expose D'avin's bio-hacked status, and leads to a hostage situation. Meanwhile, Lucy attempts to play matchmaker and much alcohol is consumed.
> 
> Soundtrack for this chapter is 'Game', by Mating Ritual.
> 
> Warning for nightmares involving body horror.
> 
> Massive thanks to everyone who has read, reviewed, or left kudos for this work. It means a lot to me. BereniceAndrea, Ruj, thisdocumentisblank, ouicertes, Killjoys4life, shannyfish, Taken_By_Mr_Mills, sad_eyed_lady_of_the_low_lands, and funnyvalentine13, you made my day!

* * *

 

იტი

 _“Our love was a two-person game. At least until one of us died, and the other became a murderer.”_ ―Dark Jar Tin Zoo

იტი

 

_“You think it’ll work?” says John as all three of them emerge from the green, coughing and spluttering and sluicing it from their clothes. “It better work.”_

_Dutch wipes plasma from her arms. She tries and fails to conceal her fear, how much she is shaken by what just happened. “We need to get out of here before we're caught in the blast.”_

_“Wait,” D’avin takes out a knife, “I have to do this.” He slices into Dutch’s bare arm. It bleeds red and doesn’t heal. His blood flowing within her veins has protected everything he holds dear. She still doesn’t know about the transfusion._

_“You next,” says Dutch._

_D’avin cuts himself and John too._

_“Yeah, thanks for that,” John says._

_“Dutch, what happened in there?” D'avin says._

_“I—” Her chest heaves a couple times and her eyes glisten in the light from the torches on the walls. “I saw Khlyen.”_

_“What the shit?” says John. “Why didn’t you say anything when we were planting the bomb?”_

_Dutch presses her lips together in a thin tight line. She_ _stumbles, seems groggy. Something is wrong. It is like the plasma has zapped all her power. “The pool,” she gasps._

_“What the?” D’avin peers into it. The surface is moving. It bobs and ripples, alive with fury, and a hand emerges. It is so covered in green that it looks as if it is made of green. “Khlyen.”_

_“D’avin, no—” Dutch tries to pull him away, but he is entranced. Gingerly he tests the green with his fingers, places a foot on the edge of the pool, clasps Khlyen’s hand and pulls. The others grab him, screaming at him to come away from the pool, but he won’t allow himself to leave Khlyen behind._

_He pulls with all his might, but the green begins to creep off of Khlyen’s hand and onto his own, bubbling and forming into nanites. It burns, but he holds on. They swarm out of the pool like insects and cover his wrist, his forearm, consuming his clothes, his skin and bones._

_There is screaming, the guttural cries of a wild animal caught in a trap, but he can’t tell who it is coming from. Time has slowed to an agonising slog and he falls back into John’s arms, part of his body crumbled to ash._

_He feels Dutch stumble backwards and fall on her ass. She reaches her hand out to him, trembling in shock, but it is futile—she couldn’t save him. The pool convulses one last time and turns black, then time quickens to normal and the pain kicks in. He looks at his right hand, tries to hold it up, but it is gone, leaving only charred elbow flesh._

იტი

“Ho!” He wakes, dragging in oxygen. Holy freaking shit. He turns his hands over in front of his face. Both there, thank the gods. He sinks back, still breathing hard, and feels his neck, his chest. He is drenched in sweat and his heart pounds like he has just run a marathon.

 _“Good morning D’avin,”_   says Lucy. _“You seem agitated. Would you like me to play soothing tunes?”_

He tries to calm himself, remembering that he is awake and he is real and it was only a dream, but still his breath shudders as he draws it in and out, the unavoidable physical effects of terror. He swallows, mouth dry. “Thanks Lucy, but I’m—I'm good, thanks.”

 _"You said 'thanks' twice, D'avin. You are not good."_   There is an ominous pause and then Lucy speaks again.  _“Dutch has locked herself in her room. Perhaps she is feeling unwell. You should check on her.”_

“Y’know,” he stretches into his black T-shirt, shedding the dream-paralysis, “it’s kinda creepy when you watch me sleep.” Maybe it’s linking with Mendoza’s plasma that’s put him in on edge, feeling the moment of death, the moment he made that shit-bag’s head go pop. Or the incinerated remains of the Hullen smoking on the sand. Or maybe it’s that he only just managed to extract his PDD from the door mechanism in the nick of time. Either way, he’s got to get a grip.

 _Get your shit together Kobee,_  Lieutenant Nareneau's voice echoes in his head, _people are depending you._ Gods, he hasn’t thought of her in years, Audra Nareneau—shitty platoon commander and even worse lay. Eh, who is he kidding? She blackmailed him into it, didn’t exactly give him a say in the matter. Still, better a lost weekend with her than a month in the glasshouse.

He takes a piss and goes to knock on Dutch’s door, saying her name softly and getting no answer. It is still pre-dawn over Old-Town. Probably better to let her sleep. “Lucy, that nut-bar dosed us with something on Xanadu. Check her heart rate.”

_“Dutch’s heart rate is within normal parameters, fifty-five beats per minute, but it increases when she is in close proximity to you.”_

D’avin exhales, one cynical hand on the bulkhead. “Lucy, what are you doing?”

_“She also releases oxytocin when you are in physical contact.”_

“Is that so?” He rolls his eyes and heads for the kitchen.

 _“Sexual activity with you results in a satisfaction quotient of ninety-two percent,”_ Lucy continues as he starts coffee, _“whereas her other partners rarely exceed forty-eight percent.”_

“Little more detail than I needed, Luce.” He reaches for a mug. It’s one of her rustic efforts, glazed in red, looks like it was made by a three-year-old. He lets out a disdainful grunt and uses it anyway.

_“I will put it in terms your squishy human mind can understand. If you sleep with her, maybe she will stop being such a bitchy baroness.”_

“You want me to bang her happy?” He rubs sleep from his eyes with one hand, pouring with the other.

_“Affirmative.”_

“Um, that’s not quite how it works.”

_“I must take care of my humans’ needs, D’avin. Air, water, intercourse. If I do that, she will stop being sad.”_

“Nice thought.” He sips his coffee. “But the only thing that’ll fix this shit-scape is Johnny coming ba—”

“Coming back?” Dutch comes into the mess area, all smudged make-up and un-brushed hair, but no less beautiful for it. She sits at the dining table and hitches one knee up to her chest, covering it with the hem of John’s sweater. He can see her panties, but he tries to ignore that. If she heard the important parts of his and Lucy’s conversation, she is too polite to say anything.

“You look like shit.”

“You look shittier. Did you even sleep?”

“Yeah, fine,” he fake smiles. “Dunno what you're talking about.”

"The mother of all hangovers." She nods at the coffee. “I’ll have one of those.”

“Take this one.” He gives her the ugly red mug, fetching a normal one for himself and sitting beside her with the rest of the coffee. “I don’t have cooties or anything.”

“I should think not,” she says, sniffing her drink, “considering that lunatic used the same needle on both of us.”

“Ew, yeah, should probably reassure you that I am absolutely, one hundred percent clean—”

“D’av—” She lays a hand on his arm. “It’s alright. I keep tabs on that sort of thing.”

“Sure. Right. Of course you do. What was I thinking?” He looks at her for a long second, wondering what could possibly break this tension. “Do you wanna go out for breakfast?”

“Mmm,” she says, becoming suddenly animated, tossing her hair, “I feel like bacon.”

“I wouldn’t recommend the bacon on Westerley, though. Fact, I’m not sure it even is bacon.”

“What is it then, human?” she laughs. “How would you even tell?”

“What happens in Reaper Pass,” he teases, getting to his feet, “stays in Reaper Pass.”

“Leith Bazaar it is then. Bell’s got a new warrant for us anyway. A level five I reserved yesterday.”

იტი

“How's your trigonometry Lucy?” D’avin lines up the borrowed Brocato BQ-2A sniper rifle on the roof of Old-Town’s highest building, a seven-six-two in the chamber, and props his PDD on a brick so that she can spot for him.

 _“Unparalleled,”_   she says, _“see what I did there?”_

“I need you to make calculations based on Coriolis and the Doppler effect.”

She gives him new measurements for the sights. Six degrees up, he tweaks the cross hairs, one-and-a-half to the right. It is an extraordinarily clear day they’ve chosen—late summer on Westerley is usually suffocated with smog. Even so, it’s been many years since he’s done this kind of thing, and he’s had to do a lot of practising in the Badlands, shooting an unfortunate melon off a fence-post in a crosswind.

 _“Wind speed, mirage, and atmospheric pressure are all perfect,” Lucy_ says. _“It is a good day to die. But Shinn Riddinger is over two klicks away, D’avin, and you need laser correction on your astigmatism.”_

“That’s what happens when you get older, Lucy. Besides, I’ve compensated.”

_“Will I be defunct when I’m older?”_

“Less of the defunct,” he mutters, and then louder, “I don’t know, how old are you?”

 _“I am ten.”_   She sounds disproportionately excited about it.

“That makes me feel super icky about you kissing John.”

Dutch comes over his comms. _“Still time to back out if you’re not comfortable with this.”_

“I’m fine, but I’m not ecstatic about you going in alone and unarmed.”

_“This shit-dick won’t let anyone within a mile radius and neither will his henchlings. The only way is to talk my way in on the pretext of a buyer.”_

“Buyer. Feel like I’m gonna vomit every time you say that.”

_“Well here’s your chance to bag a real-life child abuser, so don’t waste it.”_

“I’m not doing this because of some kind of misguided vigilantism, Dutch. I’m doing it because we need the money. I don’t know how to turn down forty grand.”

If he’d known, while in the army, that a man could earn that amount for a few hours work, he would’ve given it all up in a heart-beat. But being a contract killer, rather than the dog-tag variety, might not have been the best thing for his fragile state of mind. It’s far better the way it’s worked out. He has purpose, the chance to save up and settle down.

 _“Okay, going dark now.”_   Dutch blocks her comms.

“You still got a read on her, Luce?”

_“Dutch is entering the North stairwell now.”_

He waits. “C'mon,” he says, trigger finger itching. “How about now, Luce? Luce?”

_“Your incessant whining will not make her move faster, D'avin.”_

Riddinger drifts into view, pacing the warehouse as he converses with Dutch. She manoeuvres him into the correct position, near the window. D’avin doesn’t want to know what they’re saying. That is for Dutch to know and for him to never find out. She is so much more resilient than him. He lets stuff like this affect him too much, has to stop himself imagining the atrocities these people commit and what he’d do if he ever caught them. He doesn’t have eyes on the ass-hole’s body—window’s too small—so he’ll have to go for a head shot.

You only have one shot at this, he tells himself, lying prone on the rooftop. Breathe out. Shoot between heart beats. His hands and the rifle flinch infinitesimally with every pump of his arteries. When everything’s reduced to a single bullet flying at a high-profile target, even a fraction of a millimetre is too big an error margin. He must employ all his meditation techniques to try and calm himself. The sun beats down on the rooftop and a bead of sweat runs down his forehead.

I am the goddamn centre of gravity.

Bang.

The bullet takes just under six seconds to meet its mark. For one of these seconds he thinks he might not have compensated enough for the curvature of Westerley, might have lost his edge, but the bullet hits its target gracefully, zipping through the window glass and thudding into Riddinger’s temple. He was aiming for the brain stem, behind his ear, but this will do fine. “Dutch,” he says, hoping she’s back on-line, “you’ve got a ten second lead on Riddinger’s lackeys. Get out of there now. Dutch.” He can’t see her. Shit.

 _“Death proof confirmed,”_   her comms finally crackle to life. She sounds like she’s running. Hopefully to the stairs _. “Stop clucking like you’re my mother, Jaqobis.”_

იტი

“Come on,” Dutch says, hands on hips, “hand it over.”

D’avin pouts as he puts the rifle on the glass counter with a clunk. “Just one more go.”

“You always knew you’d have to give it back. We don’t actually need a high-powered sniper rifle, unless you’re planning on doing this every week.”

Nelwynne drags the case towards her over the counter. Behind her, the walls are stacked with various illegal weapons systems, ammo, grenades, knives, and a very nice line in shuriken stars, if you’re into that kind of thing. Nelwynne always has a very tight leather jerkin on, and a loupe permanently embedded in her right eye socket. She uses it now, to examine the rifle. “Hmm, not even a scratch.”

“Told you I’d take care of it,” says D’avin.

“She’s just mad because she can’t take a couple of large out of our security deposit,” Dutch winks.

"Ooh," says D'avin glancing over Nelwynne's offerings, "a crossbow."

"Down boy."

"I've been thinking lately that we need to switch to carbines for close-quarters," he continues.

“Need another loaner?” says Nelwynne. "Or a leash for that one, maybe?"

"We don't need carbines, or a crossbow." Dutch hoists up the duffel bag containing the Thunder they looted from Mendoza. “But we were wondering how much you’d give us for this.”

“Hey!” Someone bustles into the truck, removing dust protection and clanging the door closed, bringing the smell of the Badlands with him. One of the Ryger brothers, either Nevil or Etan, D’avin can never tell them apart.

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

Nelwynne tenses at the presence of another Killjoy, looking spooked as if she’s likely to bring down the shutters and drive off back to Gravel Hill.

“I’m on warrant,” says Nevil, or Etan, dammit, which one has the longest dreds?

“Oh,” says Dutch, “who’s the target?”

“You actually, Turin couldn’t raise you for some reason.”

“Shit,” Dutch curses herself, “D’av, you negotiate with Nelwynne and I’ll catch up with you later. Don’t let her rip you off.” She looks at Nelwynne with narrow eyes as she leaves with Ryger.

“As if I would do that,” says Nelwynne, appraising D'avin up and down.

იტი

“Who’s Kylian Luketic?” Turin circles his desk as Dutch ignores him, her arms folded in defiance. “Okay, maybe we’ll come back around to that one. Let me come at this from a different angle. The Riddinger execution.”

“We already collected the bounty. You would’ve vetoed it if you were that worried.”

“What worries me is the bureaucratic fallout of having a level four agent perform a level five warrant. See, I don’t believe you’re that good a marksman. There’s maybe a dozen people in the galaxy that can make that shot, and you’re not one of them. This fine specimen of dumb-assery, however,” he brings up a file on his screen, “is.”

It is not the RAC’s usual profile on D’avin. The photo must have been taken upon his enlistment in the army, or even a few years later, all crew-cut and goofy grin and none of the deep lines that define him in her mind. “Maybe we wouldn’t have a problem if you didn’t keep blocking his level five,” she scowls.

“If you don’t want your partner’s level five blocked, maybe don’t hire a doctor who’s crazier than him and jakked up to the eyeballs.”

“You know about that?”

"I know god-damn everything." Turin presses buttons. “Awkward Teen Idol Jaqobis was decorated for shooting no fewer than fifteen enemy officers during the battle of Brandywine. Four hundred and thirty-eight confirmed kills, a regimental record. Do you know why they transfer snipers after two years?” Dutch shakes her head slowly. “Because it drives 'em loop-de-loop.” Turin circles his ear with his spare hand.

“Are you trying to scare me? Because it doesn't work.”

“See, when this shroom trip started, I did some digging, started putting two and two together. What on goddamn Telen did they think they were doing submitting an already unhinged meat-head to mind control experiments? Someone who reportedly went on to half kill two of my agents."

She stares straight ahead. Shit-sticks. She knew Turin would figure it all out eventually, just not at the least convenient time, and perhaps not like such a gaping arse-hole. “I don't know.”

“Don't play dumb with me Yalena,” he says, and she flinches at the use of her real name, “I know you're not. You got something constructive to say on the matter?”

“He's not a meat-head,” she says morosely.

“No, he’s a metal-head. Can’t be a killjoy with mods, you know that.”

“It’s mech-organic. Make an exception.”

Turin comes back to his own side of the desk, sits down. “I will, but not for him. Because this little revelation calls your whole team’s warrants into question and I can’t be unravelling years of paperwork. It reflects badly. So your boyfriend is safe, for now.”

“I’ll make sure you don’t regret it.”

“But you’d better assure me that you can keep him under control, that he’s not a liability to me or mine. Otherwise I'll cut him loose, the other one not too far behind.”

“Won’t be a problem.”

“Given what we just discussed, you wanna fill in the gaps why Qreshi security forces have launched a query into you shooting a major smuggling kingpin at the dinner table? Last time I checked, minor parking infractions weren’t your jam.”

“It was personal. He took something from me. The warrant was just a way of getting close.”

“So, he stole from you. Do I wanna go down this rabbit’s hole?”

“It would give you major PMT.”

“You declare war, you can’t afford to chase after smoke while those green bastards are still out there.”

“Almost makes me think this is personal.” She raises one brow.

“It is personal.” Turin pours water for himself. “They infiltrated my Rack, contaminated everything I spent twenty years working for. Now I gotta make sure everyone’s on the same page, not going off on these ridiculous personal errands. Are we on the same page?”

“Absolutely,” she twists her mouth in reluctant acquiescence.

“Cease and desist from pursuing Luketic.” Turin swipes the army file safely away as she gets up to leave. “Now get out of my sight. Go rope me some Hullen or something.”

იტი

“Turin knows about your brain.”

“What?” D'avin follows her closely along Lucy's corridor as she heads for the cock-pit.

“He knows about the chip in your brain,” she says with more emphasis, blasting her temple with an imaginary finger-gun.

His eyes go wide with fear, calculating all the consequences. “How? That shit’s supposed to be undetectable.”

“But he’s willing to hide it.” She suddenly changes direction, decides on the lounge instead.

“Don’t scare me like that.” His hands are in his hair.

“He’s got your army personnel file.” Dutch sits at the coffee table and pours from a bottle of hokk she left there earlier.

“He’s got my file?” D’avin stands in front of her, helpless. “I want to see it.”

“Trust me, you don’t want to see it.” She downs the first shot and refills the glass. “You know what he’s doing, don’t you? He’s got leverage now, so he can control you.”

“Dutch,” he says, looking at the drink and then at her, “how did he get my file?” He stops. “Was it Fancy?”

“Fancy wouldn’t piss on this if it was on fire. He’s too complicit. No,” she shakes her head, “this has Bellus’s pawprints all over it.”

იტი

“Slow down.” D’avin chases her through the market. “It’s probably not what you think.”

“Haardy!” Dutch roars when she gets to the office. “What did you do?”

Bellus appears from her back-room, face set in chagrin. As she emerges they can see Petro Zimas with a weapon to her back. “I was only trying to protect you,” she says.

“I want my key back,” says Zimas. “I know you’ve got it. And don’t think I’m gonna forgive you for that little humiliation on Qresh, either.”

“Too late,” says Dutch, “we used it. That Hullen hive you were protecting? We cleansed it.”

“Cleansed?”

“Maybe you should check the grape-vine more often,” says D’avin. “We pissed in your pool big-time, dick-bird, and all your little Hullen buddies? Cured as shit and hungry for revenge.”

Dutch draws her sidearm and trains it on Zimas. “How did you know we were coming here?”

“Oh, Ms Haardy’s very handy. She’s had a tracker on you twenty-four-seven, since your other partner dropped off the radar. And the thing about a tracker is that it not only tracks the track-ee, but also tells me who’s doing the track-ing.”

“Bellus,” Dutch growls, looking at the decanters on the sideboard, “you tagged us?”

“Never could keep you out of the booze.”

“We’re not going to go missing like Johnny! What kind of ultra-paranoid crap is this?”

“What you dip-shits don’t seem to understand,” continues Zimas, poking Bellus in the spine, “is that while having a broker with fingers in lots of pies can be useful if you want to, say, fake an ID, shift contraband, or make someone disappear, it also has the drawback of being a two-way door. She’s been on my radar for quite some time now, and her deals with my contemporaries make for some very interesting light reading.” He raises the stakes by holding a knife to Bellus’s neck. She sighs as if it’s the most tedious thing in the worlds.

“Leave her out of this, Zimas,” says D’avin, “this is between you and us.”

“Actually, it’s between her and her.” He looks at Dutch. “Tell her, dear Bellus, what you did. As soon as you heard your precious princess here wanted Khlyen’s box back from Luketic.”

Bellus doesn't say anything, communicating remorse with her eyes.

“She sold us out to Turin,” says Dutch, full of venom.

“And why did you do that?” says Zimas.

“Because it’s too dangerous.” Bellus looks down, the first time they’ve ever seen her contrite.

“I’ll be the judge,” Dutch stares her down with wild and untamed wrath, “of what’s dangerous. You had no right—”

“I don’t wanna find your head on a pole! Why’d you always have to go find the biggest, baddest morons in the galaxy and start poking ‘em with the kill-me stick?”

“Turns out blood,” Zimas touches Bell’s throat with the knife, “is thicker than water after all. But all the illegal shit that you expect her to do for you, will turn out to be your downfall. She can’t be trusted. Don’t ever think she owes you her loyalty, because you’re nothi—” His head snaps back as D’avin’s bullet slams through it, and he thuds to the floor.

“Wh—” starts Dutch.

Bellus falls forward, clutching her neck.

“Sorry,” says D’avin, holstering his weapon, “he was giving me a migraine.”

“Check her.” Dutch points at Bellus and turns back to the market.

“Where are you going?” D’avin stoops and pulls Bellus’s hand away from her neck wound. It’s only superficial.

“I had no choice,” coughs Bellus.

“There’s always a choice.” Dutch wheels around, eyes brimming. “Don’t you ever speak to me again.”

“That’s gonna make it a bit difficult to complete your tax return,” Bellus calls after her, but Dutch is gone.

"She doesn't mean it." D’avin sits Bellus on her sofa and brings her bandages and Hokk, stepping over Zimas’s body. “She’ll come around when she’s cooled off. You’re like a mother to her.”

“Even if she don’t know it.” Bellus holds the bandage to her cut. “I was just about to get the drop on him, you know.”

“Why’d you do it?” D’avin pours himself hokk, hoping it doesn’t have any more soluble trackers in it.

“It was getting too hot, and she was getting sloppy. She might look tough, but she’s not. We all try to protect her from the things that’ll destroy her. Joe, me, you, Johnny.”

D'avin hangs his glass thoughtfully over his knee. He's inclined to agree with Dutch; she doesn't need protecting. “She’s obsessed with this box and so far, she’s done nothing but risk our lives to get it.”

“Why’d you help her then?”

“Because she said it was important to her, and I believe her.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Maybe, but you should have confided in us. We all know what she means to you, but I think you underestimated what your trust means to her.”

“Well, I see that now. Lot of use you are.”

“What about my army file,” he rubs his aching shoulder, “you got a copy of it?”

“Army file?” She frowns. “Don’t know anything about that.”

Company security forces finally turn up, two of them, armed to the teeth. “Shots fired?” one of them says.

“That was me,” says D’avin, greeting them with his glass in a pointless gesture, “he was holding her hostage.”

“To a fashion,” sneers Bellus.

The officers look at Zimas’s body and then at D’avin, drawing their weapons. “Get on the floor, hands behind your head!”

D’avin sighs and puts his hands up, spilling his hokk in the process.

“Hey,” says officer number two, checking Zimas, “he's still breathing.”

იტი

“Thanks for leaving me to stew in the Company garrison for five hours.” He throws his jacket onto the table right in front of Dutch.

“I didn’t tell you to shoot Zimas.” She is unusually quiet, subdued. “That was all you—”

“But how am I ever supposed to know what to do without her majesty’s official decrees?”

“And now we can’t even torture him for Luketic’s location—”

“He was never gonna give him up.” He throws his hands up. “Rampersaud killed himself, for crying-out-loud.”

When she sees his expression, she softens. “Did they—”

“Arrest me? No. Zimas survived, but I have to testify before the magister next Tuesday, which’ll probably send Turin apoplectic. You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Zimas survived?”

“Yeah, but I think his smuggling career might be over.”

“Argh.” She pushes her hair back from her forehead. “This is such a mess, and it’s all because of my stupid obsession with Khlyen.”

“You said you wanted to get away from him, but this is just chasing after a ghost.”

“You’re right,” she smiles without engaging her eyes, “it’s just a box. The key was a dead end. And I’m tired.”

“Talk to Bell. She loves you, Dutch. She doesn’t want you to get mixed up with Luketic and she’s right. I don’t think we have any business trying to retrieve Khlyen’s personal effects at such great cost. Fancy got hurt, Mendoza came this close to killing us—”

“We drop it, then.” She looks at him earnestly. “New lead first thing in the morning.”

“You’ll patch things up with Bell?”

“Uh, huh,” she nods, “tap my heart.”

He knows she’s lying.

იტი

“I'm bored.” Dutch slides her ass onto a bar-stool at the Royale. “Let’s get drunk.”

“That's the only way you can come up with to spend our down-time?” D’avin says as she grabs his hand playfully and forces him to join her. “I thought we were going to recruit Pree for our next Hullen hunt.”

“We are, but we also need to get obscenely inebriated. First round’s on you, buckaroo.”

D’avin obligingly takes his stool.

“Ain’t this just the prettiest line-up tonight?” Pree puts two different brands of hokk on the bar in front of them.

Dutch cocks her head. “Uh, we didn’t order those.”

“From your faces I just assumed it was a two-bottle problem.” Pree goes to take them back.

D’avin puts out his hands and stops him. “It is. We have to figure out a way to infiltrate the next Hullen cell when we’ve pretty much blown our cover by hunting down this Luketic dude.” He glares meaningfully at Dutch. “Who I’m fairly sure, doesn’t even exist.”

“Ignore him,” Dutch sighs at Pree, “he’s just sore because he had to shoot someone in the head earlier.”

“Two, actually,” adds D’avin.

“One of them survived,” says Dutch and Pree’s perfect eyebrows rise, “I think he’s losing his touch.”

“Guy’s skull must be this thick.” D’avin holds his finger and thumb an inch apart. “Did you see his face, though?”

Dutch pushes his shoulder. “We can't laugh about killing people. Can we laugh about killing people? I don’t think we should.”

Pree watches them with incredulity, takes a breath, blinks twice and moves on to the next customer.

“I've killed so many people it doesn't even register anymore,” says D'avin, pouring the hokk.

“What is wrong with us? Are we—are we psychopaths?”

“Oh, gods, we are, aren’t we?” D’avin toasts her and they dissolve into laughter again. After about half an hour of banter and emboldened by another few shots, he’s ready to talk about the real stuff, drawing in post-giggle air. “This is nice, you know. Now we’ve taken the pressure off.”

“Yeah, but we haven’t found Johnny yet,” she looks over at the end of the bar, “and that bloody stain on the floor is still haunting us. Do you ever think of her?”

“Occasionally. Not always in the most flattering light.”

“I suppose not.” Rather generously of spirit, Dutch offers another toast. “To Pawter,” she says.

“Hey,” D’avin points with his glass, “that guy is checking you out.”

She discretely scans the other side of the room. It’s quite busy tonight, but it doesn’t take long to spot who D’avin is talking about. He’s sitting at a table by himself, people-watching, which seems an odd occupation until you notice the clothes. Smart blue uniform, not too new, not too scuffed. Thinks a lot of himself. Moderately fit. Must be a freighter pilot in town for a layover, or maybe even a pick-up. Or a different kind of pick-up. Either way, he has twinkly eyes and an adorable snaggle tooth. He catches her looking at him and smiles back.

“He’s not that good looking.” She turns back to D’avin before he suspects she’s remotely interested.

“I’d do him.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” she laughs.

“Yeah, you’re right. I’ve been spoiled for princesses now. There’s no going back.” He picks up her PDD which she has unfortunately left unlocked. “Hey, look, he’s on that app you use.”

“You should use it too.” She snatches it back.

“I’d rather not use social media to go trawling bars, thanks. People meet the old-fashioned way where I’m from. Face-to-face. Or nuts to butts, whatever floats your boat.”

“Or receiving blow jobs from their cousins in a barn,” she smirks.

“That was one time,” he splutters, “and she’s my third cousin. Third. She’s not even a Jaqobis. Anyway, dating's a crock. You're supposed to talk to someone you've just met at dinner. It’s the exact worst time of day, when you're hungry.”

“Not everyone gets their rage on like you when they're hypoglycemic, D’av. All I’m saying is,” she leans closer to him, “sexers are expensive. Why not get your dick sucked for free?”

“You are the worst wing-man ever.” He takes the PDD back, peruses the personal ads warily. “Okay, this one's a petit woman seeking a small dick.” He tips his head in consideration. “Yeah, I can see how that's a thing. This one's seeking a long, skinny dick. Seeking a chubby dick. Better.” Impulsively, he accepts the invite from Dutch’s admirer. “Ha.”

She scowls at him, snatching the device back. “What did you do?”

“Swiped right.”

“You did what?” She almost freaks, but the guy is already on his way over. “Shit,” she says, but at the same time, she is suppressing a smile.

“He does have nice eyes,” says D’avin, shutting up just in time to not be heard by the interloper.

“Buy you a drink?” he says, flashing that massive tooth.

“Hello, sailor.” Dutch spins on her stool, calling D’avin’s bluff. Just because she can’t have him, doesn’t mean she can’t have fun tonight. “Why yes, you can.”

“What about your partner here?” Toothy winks.

“I was just leaving.” D’avin slaps joy on the bar for the hokk they’ve already consumed.

“Really?” The guy seems disappointed. “I’m not averse to threesomes.”

“I don’t doubt it, but I’m a shitty sharer. Ask anyone who tries to steal my fries.” He turns to Dutch. “See you back on Lucy?”

“Where are you going?”

“I have another appointment.” He projects nonchalance, but she knows there’s an undercurrent of concern in there somewhere, the kind of subtext which says call me if this guy turns out to be a douche. “See you later, then.”

“See you later.” She stares at him and he stares back at her. Pree watches them from across the bar, giving her a discrete _mmm, hmmm._

“Um,” says the new guy, reminding them of his presence, “my names François, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you, Frank,” D’avin says flatly, taking his leave, “but I really must be going.”

“Come on then, Frog-legs.” Dutch takes him by the elbow and leads him to the stairs. “Show me what you got.”

იტი

D’avin finds Turin in the alley. “I want that file.”

“But if I gave you that,” says Turin, “how would I pull your cute little puppet strings? And how would I keep Barbie in line?”

“You’re using me to control her?”

“She cares about you, a little too much for my comfort. If the truth ever got out, how long do you think you’d last?”

“What do you mean?” D’avin frowns.

People walk past the entrance to the alley and Turin lowers his voice to a hiss. “I mean there are lives you decimated. Doesn’t matter that it was against your will. Relatives ain't gonna see it that way.”

“You wouldn’t,” D’avin fires at him.

“Try me. I’d be lauded as a hero by the families of those men you killed.”

“Those men,” D’avin fumes, “were my family, so don't you act like they're just pieces of meat.”

“Or you’ll what, do the same thing to me?”

D’avin looks down, realises he’s clenching his hands firmly into fists. “What if I just gazump you, tell them myself?”

“Then I still have the fact that you’ve been augmented. Without killjoy status you're just another illegal alien. Now you're more savvy than most, but I still wouldn't fancy your chances. Gonna have to face it sooner or later; you’re a hack-mod, Jaqobis, trans-human, H-plus, whether you like it or not. Don’t matter that it’s invisible.” Turin prepares to leave and notices D’avin’s expression. “Oh, you don’t like those words? Shame. You could always have it removed. Magic Pony powers we can use, remote control, not so much.”

“Can’t remove it without lobotomising me.”

“What difference would it make?” Turin shrugs as he begins to walk away.

“Please.” D’avin’s shoulders slump. He’s out of cards to play. “Those files are years of my life that I can never get back. I need to know.”

Turin turns back. “Keep catching me Hullen dick-tips and colour within the lines. No more personal crusades. You got that?”

D’avin kicks the wall after Turin is gone, makes a dent in the fire-exit with his fist. He goes back inside to talk to Pree, shaking it out.

Pree is just finishing up with one of the miners when he sits back at the bar. “Somewhere on the other side of the galaxy, a quantum paradox has opened up and swallowed a whole civilisation, because she’s going home with someone else on your anniversary.”

D’avin can barely muster the enthusiasm to say “what?”

“Your anniversary,” says Pree, looking to the side, “good-heavens, what is wrong with you? A year ago today was the day she was supposed to kill you, but didn’t. That’s why you’re sitting here with a face like a wet Tuesday, right?”

“No, I didn’t—that’s not—it’s been that long already?” A whole year, that’s the longest he’s lived with anybody.

Pree scoots a beer over the bar to him. “I know your problem.”

“You do?”

“You're addicted to damaged women. Dutch, Sabine, Red. Mommy Dearest. Because they're not emotionally available. It's safe.”

“What d'you mean 'safe'?” he says, taking a swig of the beer. “None of them are remotely safe.”

“You'll never have to commit. You can just walk away when everything blows up in your face. And it’s waiting for that explosion that appeals to the adrenaline junkie in you.”

“What do you suggest I do, then?

“Find a nice farm-girl and settle down, have five or six kids.”

“Boring.”

“See what I mean? Addicted.”

“You just shut your perfect know-it-all face. I can do commitment. I'm committed to Dutch. I'll prove it.”

“Yeah, whatever, sweetie,” Pree scoffs.

“I will,” he frowns, hurt frankly, “I’m not gonna be the first to walk away. Hey, what kind of bullshit reverse psychology is this?”

“Or, you’ll just keep on doing whatever she asks until it kills you.” Pree leaves him then, is needed elsewhere. “Food for thought.”

იტი

She doesn’t want a mushroom or a dill pickle.

No, what she wants is the elusive unicorn dick. Unicorn dick is beautiful, and it doesn’t have any of the weird features of other dicks. Unicorn dick is strong, yet gentle. Its owner has the swagger of a man who knows that size doesn’t matter, but also knows that what she really wants is its gentle girth. He doesn’t underestimate its value. He knows how to use it.

This dick is not unicorn dick. This one is at least twelve inches from balls to tip, slightly curved, and as thick as her forearm. It is also attached to François Bucktooth.

“What the hells am I supposed to do with that?” she exclaims, standing at the foot of the bed as Bucktooth reclines upon it.

“Hop on,” he grins.

“Uh, hard pass,” she says, eyes still wide, “thank you.” She begins to dress herself again, much to Bucktooth’s annoyance.

“But you—”

“Changed my mind.” She elbows her way into her top and thrusts her legs back into her trousers.

Bucktooth’s face—and erection—drop half a mile and she feels sorry for him. He must get this all the time. “It’s the teeth, isn’t it?”

“No,” she pulls on her boots, “it’s because that thing will probably rip me in half. Look, it’s not you, it’s just that you landed in the middle of something complicated, that’s all.” She gathers her things and closes the door behind her, trying in vain not to laugh in disappointment and disbelief. Taking out her PDD, she calls plan B.

იტი

“Lucy, what is this?” There is a paper envelope on the dining table when he gets home.

_“Commander Alfred Olyevitch Turin delivered a package while you were imbibing ethanol, D’avin. I think he likes you.”_

“He most certainly does not.” He rips it open and tips out the contents. A slip of paper reads—

 _Had a change of heart._  
_Tell anyone I’ve got one, and I will have your balls._

D’avin turns over the data card and looks at each side, as if it could tell him whether to go down this road.

_“What is it, D’avin?”_

“Military files.”

_“Are you sure you’re ready for this?”_

“Nope.”

იტი

“I don't want him,” says Alvis, “you take him.”

“I don't want him either.” Dutch props herself up on his pillow after banging in the Scarbacks’ Old-Town chapter-house. It's one of the oldest buildings in the city, one of the few built with thought to the aesthetics, and she's always liked it. A sheer red curtain flutters in the night-breeze, the only concession to comfort in the austere cell. Except for Alvis's ministrations, that is.

“Look, the guy saved my life, I owe him that, but I'll be damned if he's not the most irritating person in the whole forsaken system.”

“You should try living with him.” She doesn't mean that. He's so much quieter and tidier than Johnny and doesn't leave beard hair on the edge of the sink. Every single day, without exception, he asks her what she wants to do for breakfast, and it’s these small things that tear out her heart. The bigger things too, like the way she knows he'll always have her back. Makes it harder to go behind his. “I just need him distracted for a day or two, so I can complete a mission—”

“Do I really want to get involved in this?”

“Probably not.”

“I'll try, but I can't promise anything.”

“You're a doll.” She strokes the back of her fingers down his cheek. “You were always a doll.”

Alvis props himself up on one elbow to look at her better. “We can't keep doing this, you know,” he says with a degree of sadness.

“Why not?”

He gets up and lights incense. “I think you know why.” 

იტი

Dutch puts her purse on the table and hangs her jacket on the back of one of the chairs. D’avin is still sitting there with his head in his hands. “Don’t you want to hear how it went with Captain Bucktooth?”

He sucks in breath, swallows distress. “No.”

“Hey.” She sits beside him, suddenly concerned. “Was it something I said?”

He rights himself, rubbing fatigue from his face, and hands her the tablet. “Turin relinquished the records.”

“Oh, shit,” she says, “that’s—”

“Huge.”

She scrolls, but it doesn’t make any sense. A lot of it is redacted. “It just stops nine years ago.”

“We knew that already,” he says, “but look at the last entry.” 

She does. “What’s TMS?”

“Trans-cranial Magnetic Stimulation. It’s something the army flirted with a decade ago. It’s supposed to be a performance enhancer.”

“A front for the Chrysalis project?”

“Look at the consent,” he says, and there it is, an authenticated video log, no denying it. “I volunteered, Dutch. I fricking volunteered.”

The tears are falling freely now, from both of them. She holds his head to her chest, cradles it, kisses the top of it. “Shhh,” she whispers, “it’s alright. It's all going to be fine.”


	7. Wanderlust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our duo go their separate ways and have very different rendezvous on opposite sides of Leith. One involves an epic fight and the other, lots and lots of sex.
> 
> Soundtrack for this chapter is ‘Hide’, by Little May.
> 
> Warning for graphic horror.

* * *

 

იტი

 _“We've been gone for such a long time, that I'm almost afraid to go home._  
_A long road is a long dragged out imagination where things can go wrong,_  
_But we keep rolling on.”_ —Lucius

იტი

 

D’avin wakes from yet another dream about rising through water and not being able to smash the ice covering it. He looks at his PDD on the night stand and it’s not even half way through the night. “Screw you, ya son of a bitch!” he shouts.

Dutch hears him and comes running. She reaches his door just as he opens it. “I thought something was wrong,” she pants.

“Just my brain.”

She is visibly relieved. They make tea and sit in the lounge.

“There’s no point in you losing sleep too,” D'avin says, “go back to bed.”

“I told you we'd do this together.”

“I don’t think this is helping.”

“What do we do, then?”

“I don’t know. I’m out of options. I’m not gonna be much use to you on sedatives.”

“There’s always the obvious solution.” She mimes shooting him. “If I stun you three or four times, that’ll make you sleep through the night.”

“Yeah and give me the granddaddy of all headaches and probably do long term damage.” He turns thoughtful, looking at the steaming tea. “I thought—I thought finding out the truth about, you know, would help, but what if it's not related to my trauma? Correlation doesn't mean causation.”

Dutch pats his hand. “I’ll ask around. Someone must have a solution.”

“Turin used a word. H-plus. Trans-human, or something. What if I’m not fully human anymore?”

“One little chip can’t change your species, no matter what people say. Don't listen to those prejudiced creeps.”

“No, I mean whatever they did to me, to make me immune to Hullen, it’s in every cell. It’s in my DNA. What if no human doctor can fix it?”

იტი

Dutch is woken by weird creaking sounds a few hours later. She goes to the galley, rubbing sleep from her face, to find him trying to make more tea with cold water. “What are you doing?” she says. “D’av. D’av.” And then louder. “D’avin!”

He doesn’t respond.

She peers around him to look at his face. He is completely engrossed in the task and doesn’t notice her. She waves a hand in front of him. “Lucy?” An edge of fear creeps into her voice. “What’s wrong with him?” She doesn’t want to say what she thinks it might be.

_“D’avin is in an ambulatory para-somnambulant state.”_

“English.”

_“He is sleep-walking, Dutch.”_

“What should I do?”

_“All database resources suggest you should gently guide him back to bed. Do not wake him, as that can induce panic.”_

“Panic in who?”

_“The patient, Dutch.”_

“That was rhetor—oh, never mind.” She gingerly places her hands on D’avin’s shoulders and steers him back to his room. “Lucy, what if he pisses himself or something?”

 _“That is statistically unlikely,”_   says Lucy.

“He’s done this before?”

_“Six times in the last three weeks.”_

“Why in the hells didn’t you tell me?”

_“I was not informed of any alert parameters.”_

“Gods dammit Lucy, you’re driving me insane. I’m setting alert parameters now. Tell me if he goes walkabout again.”

Fortunately, Sleep-D’avin seems to know what to do. He climbs back into bed and pulls the sheet up around himself. Lucy closes his door, but Dutch can’t shake the creepy feeling as she goes back to her room, and she tosses and turns for the rest of the night.

იტი

“What’s this, guilt-tea?” Dutch takes the paper cup suspiciously as they wander the bazaar, pushing past crowds gawping at the festive ornaments.

“More like apology-tea.” D’avin holds up his own cup like a toast. "For the rude awakening."

“And what’s that, passive-aggressive coffee?” She moves stiffly, and he's sure it's not entirely because of their lost sleep.

"Is there something wrong?"

"Why would there be anything wrong? Of course there's nothing wrong."

"Just, ugh, never mind." He stops to look at the antiques stall. There’s a bear carved from a single piece of antler, a game of solitaire hand-made out of watch faces, and some brass riding tack. “Where was I, anyway?”

“Pumpkin pie,” she says as they resume their path.

“Pumpkin pie, right. The obscene fetishization of pumpkins around harvest time. I'm not against them per se, just don't want it for a whole month. Pumpkin pie’s not even a pie. It’s more of a flan really.”

“Speaking of harvest delicacies, feel like grackle for lunch?”

“No more grackle. It’s the tiny little bones, such a hassle.”

“You’re such a food-snob,” she says, trailing her fingers through some gilded fabrics as they reach the independent quarter. 

“Can’t help it if I have taste-buds.”

“Well, it’s either that or another tofu schnitzel.” She takes a silk scarf from a shelf and drapes it over her head like a veil, looking like a proper princess.

D’avin imagines people think she’s on a diplomatic mission and he’s her body-guard. “No thanks. How about we just get Kefferin food instead?”

She glowers at him for a second and puts the scarf back. “Okay, but only if you get the teff injera. I’m not eating the regular injera. It’s terrible here.”

“Now who’s the snob?” His PDD beeps and he takes it out. “Any idea why Alvis keeps leaving me cryptic messages about a hippy retreat in the forest?”

“Nope,” she says innocently, as they arrive at Ashere’s boutique.

“Dutchie, darlink,” says Ashere, kissing both cheeks, “so happy you’re here. My day is suddenly so much less borink.” And then he turns to D’avin with a sharp intake of breath. “And who is zis darlink? Such vonderful shoulders!”

D’avin beams as Ashere takes out a tailor’s tape and immediately starts measuring him, um-ing and ah-ing, and sucking in his thin bottom lip.

“He’s here to hold my purse,” says Dutch, taking off her jacket, “but feel free to use him as a clothes hanger.”

“Hey,” says D’avin, as Ashere spins him around, “I get the coffee too.”

“Or is he your concubine?” Ashere winks dramatically.

“Concubine?” D’avin mutters under his breath. “That would be a promotion.”

“It's important to know your colours.” Ashere picks out a shirt and holds it up to D’avin’s chin. “Vhere’s Blue-eyes?” 

“He's on sabbatical,” says Dutch, resting against Ashere’s counter and giving D’avin a sympathetic smile.

“Oh vell.” Ashere draws air through his teeth, admiring D’avin’s muscles. “Zis one vill do. Much better for dressink.”

“Thanks,” says D’avin, “but I’ve got blue eyes too, you know.”

Ashere leans in closer to him, speculating. “Jo,” he says, incredulously, “but yours are less ‘Cloudless Sky’ and more ‘Sanitation Fluid’.”

D’avin is crestfallen.

Dutch snorts into her tea. “We’re here for me, remember.”

“Of course, darlink,” Ashere puts down D’avin’s new shirt, “follow me. I have a vonderful piece I tink you’ll be interested in, vas originally made for one of zose drzý princesses on Qresh, and some people have a problem viz second-hand, but vhy pay full price, zat’s vhat I alvays say.”

They disappear behind a heavy brocade curtain and D’avin is left holding Dutch’s purse and the paper cups. He smiles at a passing young woman with a wicker shopping basket over one arm and she winks back, drawing attention to her hips. He’s still watching her on the opposite stall when Dutch emerges from behind the curtain.

“What do you think?” she says, turning this way and that, turquoise silk cutting into her figure in all the right places and her hair in a neat roll like a bitchy Qreshi businesswoman. 

Something deeply primal rises up in D’avin, and he nearly spills the coffee. “It’s,” he stutters, “suitably slutty.”

“I don’t think it’s slutty enough.” Dutch examines her ass in the long mirror.

“Depends if you vant it for pleasure,” says Ashere, “or pain.”

“Business,” says Dutch, “I’m going under cover. Might need you to cut it up to here though, so I can still fight in it.”

Just then, a rapscallion runs through the thoroughfare, upsetting the winking young woman’s basket. She and her shopping go tumbling to the ground and someone further away shouts, “stop, thief!”

D’avin puts the cups down on Ashere’s haberdashery counter and goes into full-on action mode, picking up a can of peaches as it rolls toward him and throwing it at the thief’s head. It sends him sprawling into a crowd of harvest revellers.

“Typical.” Dutch shakes her head, looking at Ashere.

“Does he do zis often?” says Ashere, as the mob set upon the thief without mercy. “Ooh,” he flinches.

D’avin comes back, helping to retrieve the rest of the young woman’s groceries. He extends a supporting hand as she shuffles on her knees, picking up paper packages and a tube of incense. “Thanks.”

“Sorry if your peaches are dented, Miss—?”

“Tree,” she says, “Zoee Tree.”

“Tree?”

“It's a fairly common name around here.”

“D’avin,” he says, “Jaqobis.”

“Nice handbag,” she says, looking at Dutch’s purse still tucked under his arm.

“Yeah,” he grins, “it’s really expensive.”

Their eyes meet over the contents of the basket, and he notices that Zoee has impressive boobs, fighting a tight sweater. “You can’t afford ‘em,” she says.

“I’m a killjoy,” he says.

“Okay, maybe you can afford ‘em.”

They both laugh, helping each other to their feet. Dutch fake laughs along with them.

“I can, but will I, though?” D’avin narrows his eyes.

“I don’t know,” says Zoee seductively, “I have a cancellation this afternoon. What’s your flavour?”

“Vanilla,” says D’avin.

“Calamari,” says Dutch almost at the same time, giving him a sharp shrug when he glares at her accusingly.

“I can work with that,” says Zoee. “Credentials?” She taps her PDD on his, starts scrolling, seems satisfied and hitches her head toward the exit. “Okay, let’s go.”

D’avin looks at Dutch for approval. _Really?_  

“Yeah, go,” she says with a little too much enthusiasm, “you deserve it. Have fun. I can handle things from here.”

“You’ll visit Bell, like you said?” He gives her back the purse as he takes Zoee’s arm.

“Mmm,” she nods effusively.

“Let me show you zese shoes,” Ashere says to console Dutch as they walk away.

Once Ashere’s place is out of view, D’avin unlinks his elbow from Zoee’s. “S’been nice meeting you Miss, er, Tree, but I’m afraid I won’t be hiring your services, tempting as it is.”

“What?” She stops, looking at him with thinly veiled contempt.

“Yeaaah,” he squints, smiling painfully, “thing is, I needed a convincing reason to get away from my friend back there. I’m actually headed somewhere else.”

“Screw you, pussy-blocking bitch.”

Whoa. Okay. Rather unseemly for a premium-level service provider. Lucky escape. People are looking at them now, so he lowers his voice and takes her to a corner. “Not cool, yeah, I know. How about I give you a five-star review and we’ll call it even.”

“Consider yourself black-balled, killjoy.” Zoee walks away, basket hanging from her arm, minus the peaches.

იტი

 _“Where is D’avin?”_   says Lucy as she comes aboard. _“Have you misplaced him again? That was careless.”_

“He’s doing the gratitude tango with a sexer from the market.” Dutch deposits her acquisitions on the nearest available surface.

_“Would you rather he was dancing with you?”_

“Don’t start, Lucy, just don’t start. Take me to the meeting point.”

იტი

Gina Alexopoulos is cleaning the operating table with languid drudgery, wondering what she’s having for dinner tonight, when she hears the bell over the door. “Surgery’s over for the weekend,” she calls, “come back on Monday.”

Someone stands in the doorway, blocking out the light. “Hey,” he says.

“D’avin?” she says, attempting to disguise her delight. “So good to see you again. How’s your back?”

“Great. You were right, the Dermo-Five-Thousand is better than the Four-Thousand.”

“Well, it is made for show-pigs,” she smiles. “What can I do for you? Trying to score pharmaceuticals?”

“Something else. Unless I read you wrong.”

She waits a few seconds, making him sweat. She’d forgotten how good looking he was. “You read right.” She puts down her bottle of disinfectant and comes closer, tension pulsating between them. “Does your wife know you’re here?”

“She’s not my wife. She’s my boss—Partner. Partner-boss.”

“Work-wife, then.” She stops mere centimetres from him.

“Before, that was just a silly game. She makes my brother play it too.”

“Weird.” Gina traces a line down the seam of his shirt. “But hot.”

“How do you want to do this?” he says as she starts undoing his belt with deft fingers.

“First I’m gonna take a shower, because I’m covered in dog hair, but then we should negotiate terms.”

“Negotiate away.”

She pauses her unbuttoning. “Non-ejaculatory boning over the kitchen table for starters, because it gets me in the mood.”

“So far, so good.”

“Followed by oral in the bed.”

“Go on.”

“Upon waking, we take advantage of your morning wood by frantically banging to a mutual orgasm, repeat performances optional, pending breakfast and snuggling.”

“I accept your terms. But I would also like to use your shower first. And then we should discuss protection.”

“Agreed.” She takes him by the hand and leads him up the narrow stairs to her apartment.

იტი

“Not going to announce me this time, ship?” Fancy says as he comes aboard with the sack.

Lucy makes him wait a few seconds before answering. _“I have a name, Mr Lee, and if you absolutely must address me, I would thank you to use it.”_

Dutch laughs to herself. “Say you’re sorry, Fancy.”

“What for? I haven’t done anything.”

“She’s been moody since Johnny left.” Dutch lifts her chin. “Lucy, be nice to Fancy, he’s—he’s one of us.”

_“I am watching you, Mr Lee.”_

“You have the canister?” Dutch eyes the sack.

“You have the cash?” Fancy pulls the black cloth off as if he’s removing the hood from an abductee.

She hands over a wad of joy and takes the canister by the handle, like a lantern. Through the aperture she can see the sunless orchid from Xanadu, nestled safely in several inches of sand, blooming in perpetual suspended animation. Her eyes glow in the diffuse ultra-violet light. “How’d you do it?”

“That's proprietary. Took a while, but I got there eventually.” Fancy watches her as she places it gently on the desk and takes pictures of it with her PDD. “Where’s Cheekbones tonight?”

“He’s, uh, not himself.” She continues to snap away, trying to get the best angle. But the problem is that D’avin is himself. She’s caught him going blank a lot more often since Turin gave him the files, staring into space. And then there was the episode last night. Quite unsettling. “I just hope it’s not the start of something.”

“Pro tip. Stop reading when it says spoiler alert. Didn’t he get invalided out of the army on a seven-thirty?”

“Turin threatened us, to stop us going after Luketic, and it got rather personal. Shook him, that’s all.”

“I take it you’re crapping all over his polite request, then?”

“The whole shit and caboodle.” Dutch finishes up and uploads the images to the computer.

“So, what’s the plan?” Fancy comes closer, arms folded, for a better look.

“They all know where Luketic is, but they’re shit scared. Which doesn’t make any sense because Hullen don’t get scared—they can’t be tortured.”

“Correct.”

“But why would Zimas rather destroy the key than give it back? Why would Rampersaud kill himself to avoid capture? I missed something.”

“There’s a surprise,” says Fancy.

“Shut up and listen. So, the Fraternity have a system set up whereby they exchange messages hidden in innocuous objects—”

“Like the lady-cabinet orchid’s pot—” Fancy nods.

“But what if Rampersaud wasn’t the receiver? What if Luketic is the real orchid collector, and Rampersaud was sending them to him as a gift?”

Realisation comes over Fancy’s face. “We made all our assumptions based on Hullen not feeling. Rampersaud’s fear was for Luketic’s safety. How did we miss that? How did I miss that?”

“Maybe they were lovers,” Dutch shrugs, “who knows.”

“How can there be a whole fraternity of Hullen who can feel human emotions?”

“I don’t know, and it’s not important right now. What’s important is getting that box back.”

“And the best way to find orchid collectors,” Fancy looks at the computer screen, “is to enter it into the online auction.”

Dutch taps the keyboard. “Hook line and sphincter.”

“If Luketic’s intelligent, he won’t take the bait.”

“He will. I know he will. He’s been after one of these for years.” She spins the picture of the sunless orchid on the screen, presses the button to start the bidding. “Why else would he need to visit Mendoza’s compound?”

The offers start to climb almost instantly, and Dutch sits back with a satisfied smile.

“Want me to provide back-up?” says Fancy.

"Nuh-uh." She shakes her head, biting a thumb nail. “This is something I have to face alone.”

იტი

“Just so you know,” Gina yawns, fiddling with the sparse hair on his chest, “I don’t sleep with all my patients.”

“I should hope not.” D’avin places a hand behind his pillow for support, resting in the afterglow.

Their negotiated activities had been subject to last minute amendments, with the table-top escapade turning into a full-on boinking, until they both collapsed on the nearby couch. He didn’t know how much he needed it until it started, and they got carried away, the business-like accordance discarded along with shirts and scrubs and pants. Then he’d given her another dicking in the untidy, but luxuriant bed, before they both defaulted to their mouths. He’s come three times in a row now, and so has she, sated and sore and tired.

Gina snuggles closer under his arm as they stare at the wooden beams overhead. “I get the feeling you were somewhere else. With someone else.”

“Actually, I was thinking about a scene in the last movie I saw, and even though it’s not really my thing, I weirdly came to that.”

“What movie?”

“Robots.” He’s going to kill Johnny when he gets back. “Sorry if I was too rough with you—”

“Not at all. I would’ve said stop.”

“It has been a while.”

“What happened? Can’t imagine you’re short of offers.”

“I had a, uh, traumatic experience.” He swallows, following the pattern on the wallpaper, tiny flowers climbing up a vine. Must be a hundred years old.

“Someone hurt you?” she says.

“More like stalked me, lied to me and bedded me, only to—” He doesn’t know how to explain it. “Fall ill at the exact worst moment. She probably would’ve killed me and my team if it hadn’t been for that. It’s hard when you keep thinking about someone almost dying under you every time you feel a woman’s touch.”

“Sounds like the absolute worst lay ever.” Gina is pretty in an out-doorsy way, bordering on too petit for him, but they’d managed to get around that. She’s soft and feminine with a little round belly and, although she’s not strictly his type, he discovers he likes it.

“It was. Except for Aria Kwan, who insisted upon calling my penis her pretty puppet and making it dance for her, yeah, that was a low point.”

“Definitely not a turn on.” Gina falls back in peals of laughter.

His PDD chimes with yet another message from Dutch. _I got the blue dress in the end. We need to go somewhere and test-drive it. Up for a bar-fight? We have no food in the cupboards. Have you seen my duct-tape? I need it to torture someone. Never mind. Found it. Don’t come back without alcohol, or there’ll be trouble._ He wonders if she realises how desperate and lonely she sounds, fishing for a response. Well, he's not going to fall for it.

“I’m not sleepy yet,” Gina interrupts his scrolling. “Want something to eat?”

D’avin turns the device off to silence his conscience and moves his arm to allow her to get up. “Nice, thanks.”

He watches Gina as she potters about her kitchen corner. Her possessions are telling. The books on her shelves are old, peeling tomes telling of flora, fauna and rare diseases, and there are no pictures of loved ones. Everything else in the cottage seems contradictory for a professional young woman, the furniture, the décor. He supposes she must’ve inherited it. She warms up stew from the freezer on an archaic wood-burning stove, and they sit in their underwear under the low oak beams, playing Higher-or-Lower with a deck of care-worn cards, eating goat and drinking cheap Martell hokk.

“In your face,” she says, turning over the Widow card, and then takes a different type of chance. “Stay with me. Tomorrow. Don’t go straight away. It’s my day off.”

“I don’t know. I have to work.” He puts his cards down. She’s won anyway—he's been counting them. All he has is the Knave, the Bachelor and a bunch of low numbers. 

“Everyone needs a day off.”

She has a point. Sometimes he doesn’t feel like he can deal with Dutch. Screw it. “Alright.”

There is distant barking downstairs and Gina hands him her glass. “Feck. Forgot to feed the dogs,” she says, “be right back.”

იტი

Dutch goes there unarmed, with only the orchid. It is an old house, big enough that it would need a staff to maintain, but there is no sign of them, save for the grim human guard who frisks her at the door. He disappears into the dark hallway, leading her through to the glass orangery and they emerge into a humid paradise, all velvety moss and carnivorous fly-traps. She recognises some sentient lianas that she hopes won’t be used against her later. They hiss as she passes, and the dank smells of compost and algae meet her nostrils as the servant delivers her to the area with the ferns and orchids. It is a stormy night and rain lashes against the glass roof. There might even be a little thunder and lightning. Kylian Luketic is sitting alone in a wicker chair, but she can’t see his face.

“Flowers, how lovely.” His voice is rough, as if he has suffered a throat injury.

Dutch holds up the canister. “Fair exchange. The orchid for the box.”

“I’ve already paid through the nose for it.”

“That was just the price of getting me here. The box. Now. Or I smash the container.”

The head bows a little, the shoulders slump. “Put it on the table, over there.”

A little way from her is a potting bench littered with gardening supplies, nutrient pellets and incubators. She places the canister on it, but still she cannot see the man’s face. “Rather impolite to turn your back on a guest, you know.”

Luketic has a smaller table by his chair and the box is on it. It is red like all of Khlyen’s other murder-boxes. Finally. “No one has ever captured a sunless orchid. How did you do it?”

“Had a friend knock a little something up.”

“Like the poison you threw in my dear brother’s plasma pool?”

“You knew I was coming, but you let me come anyway.”

“I was curious to see if you really did look like Aneela.” He can see her reflection in the glass, but she can’t see him. “My sister has other ideas, though. We argued a little on that point.”

“Hello, little mouse,” comes a voice at her back. “Back for another ass-tearing?”

She turns and Katie Teoh is standing there wearing a venomous corset and creaky thigh-high boots. “Strip club's a little cliché, don't you think?”

Teoh shrugs. “Pays the bills. When killjoys aren't trying to rob me.”

“I want that box, Teoh.”

“Walk away now, while you still can,” Teoh sneers, “you have no idea what is coming to you.”

“That box is the last connection I have to Khlyen. I can’t just let it go.”

“You'll have to fight me for it, woman to woman.” Teoh goes for a cock shot and Dutch is knocked to the floor, the pain tearing through the thousands of nerves in her pubic area. “I know you’re not armed. They wouldn’t have let you in here otherwise.”

“Why are you all protecting each other?” Dutch says, crouching on the floor. “Hullen don't feel anything.” She pulls her necklace out of her jacket and twists the green jewel hanging on it. Out drops a small knife made of the same precious stone. She secures it between her knuckles.

Teoh nods, impressed, but brings out a bigger dagger. “Give me whatever you’ve got.”

“How about both barrels?” Dutch goes in for the kill. Dodging the knife, she twists Teoh’s arm until she cries out. Her jewel-blade draws blood at the back of Teoh’s neck. But the cry soon turns to a laugh as Dutch’s efforts to dislodge her knife-grip fall on un-moving flesh. The neck wound heals as quickly as she cuts. Dutch elbows Teoh in the stomach again and again, but still she holds on. Gods it’s frustrating fighting these ass-holes. She goes for the face instead. That way, at least, Teoh stops laughing. “Answer me,” Dutch growls.

“You killed my brothers.” Teoh gives up and twists out of her grip, taking a defensive stance a few metres away. “Do you yield?”

“Just warming up.” Dutch cracks her knuckles and flexes her neck. Teoh might own a dance club, but she’s no dancer and she has no defence for Dutch’s butterfly kick.

Before Teoh can recover from the strike, Dutch overturns a table onto her, sending pots and seedlings asunder, and stands, reeling, to survey the damage.

“Ugh.” Teoh kneels up on the tiled floor, winded. “You’ll pay for that, pretty.”

Dutch reaches down and rips the lace from her boot as Teoh lunges for her again. It's not just a boot-lace, it's a serrated wire, and Dutch whips it around her neck and garrottes her. Teoh’s eyes bulge, choking and scrambling for the lace with her hands, kicking ineffectually back at Dutch. “You won’t look so pretty without a head,” Dutch says as she pulls the line tighter and tighter. There is something inside, an anger that bubbles up in these moments, that has nothing to do with the enemy she is fighting. An anger that she’s forced to do this in the first place. That she’ll never be able to live a normal life. Defiance against those who have made her into a weapon. She must keep surviving. She must keep killing. She must prevail.

Before Dutch knows what is happening, Teoh has thrown her to the floor and stands over her, one hand holding her knife and the other on her half-severed neck. Blood drips over her fingers, making stripes as the wound heals. “Did you think I would die that easily, little mouse?” she says. “I’ve fought better assassins than you in the last hundred years, and let me tell you, you’re not all that.”

Dutch kicks Teoh’s feet out from under her and she is suddenly on top of her. There is booze on her breath. She has lost her jewel knife somewhere on the floor and her fingers struggle desperately for it now, just beyond reach. Damn, Teoh is one tough bitch. Dutch hooks her leg around her ankle and tries to turn her over, but she won’t budge. It’s like she’s made of granite and Dutch is already tiring. The trouble with fighting Hullen is that they don’t care how much you hurt them, they just keep holding on. She knees Teoh multiple times in the ’nads, but it does nothing.

Teoh brings a pistol close to her face. Sweat drips down. They are locked in stalemate. Strangely, the stench of moss is at its strongest now, as Teoh nuzzles her nose in mockery. Then a high calibre bullet smashes through the glass roof and thuds through her brain-stem. She slumps in death.

Dutch pushes her off, gulping oxygen, as the sound of a drone hums outside. “Thanks Fancy, but I nearly had her,” she says under her breath, picking up her jewel knife and Teoh’s pistol, training it on Luketic at the other end of the room. “I'm giving you one last chance. Why do the Fraternity protect you?”

“Love,” says Luketic, “between brothers. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Getting there.” Dutch tips her head, kicking Teoh’s body aside.

“You don’t play fair. How will I ever live this death down?”

“That’s the beauty of death.” Dutch inches closer. “You won’t have to justify yourself.”

“Oh,” says Luketic, “but that’s where you are wrong. You don’t really understand how the plasma works, do you?”

“It’s a repository for memory. An organic super-computer.”

“But what do you think that means?” Luketic laughs. “It means an after-life for those who have been uploaded into it.”

“What?” She’s nearly upon him now, stalking a path through ferns and bobbing purple flowers.

“I cannot truly be killed. I will live forever in memory. Can you say the same?”

“I don’t want to live forever,” she says through gritted teeth, “I just want to save this stupid galaxy and then make the pain go away.”

“I am no stranger to pain myself.” Luketic turns then, and she gasps, stops in her tracks.

There’s not much that can turn Dutch’s stomach, but this is exceptional. Half of Luketic’s body is twisted and deformed, much like Aneela’s subjects in her lab, the skin warped and knotted in a way that makes it impossible for him to move without help. Half of his face has travelled downwards until the eye can barely see, and the nose is replaced with an open wound, exposing cartilage and congealed blood mixed with green. The smooth side is just as horrific, but in a different way. His mouth is split almost to the ear in a parody of a smile, and where there should be a right eye, there are only more teeth.

She can’t look away. Teeth instead of an eye. Trees preserve us. “W—What happened to you?”

“Your beloved Khlyen saw fit to experiment on us, to find a cure for his daughter’s condition. It didn’t work.”

“I’ll say.” Dutch takes another step closer, her lip curled in disgust, both at what she’s seeing and Khlyen’s cruelty.

“But in his attempts to ease her madness, he discovered a way to turn us without disconnecting the emotional response.”

“That’s why your fraternity feel. That’s why they love and protect—”

“That is why,” Luketic wheezes, “I am cursed to live like this forever. Knowing only constant pain.”

“Why don’t you just kill yourself?”

“Because the disfigurement and the agony will also be uploaded into the green.” He looks sideways at the box. “We hoped it might contain something that would help my condition. Perhaps even the cure. I had my people ransack the lab on Arkyn as soon as we sensed Khlyen was gone, but we couldn’t open it.”

Dutch grasps it desperately, hungrily, and holds it to her chest. “That’s because it’s bio-locked. It was meant for me. Only me.”

“Then it shall be as it was meant to be.”

She begins to back away. She never expected to feel pity for Hullen. “I’m so sorry.”

“What for?” Luketic attempts a smile with lips that refuse to meet. “I’ve lived like this for over a century. I’ve never had any other kind of life.”

“On Arkyn, there was a monk. He was tortured. We helped him. I can help you.”

“How?”

She takes a tiny vial out of her boot. “This is a special toxin Khlyen made. It won’t fix your physical condition, but it will disconnect you from the green. It will be over quickly.”

Luketic reaches out and takes the poison from her hand. She’s filled with an odd kind of pity for the gnarled claw. “Leave me now,” he says. “It’s better if you’re not present when I take this. Khlyen’s potions can be unpredictable.”

“One last question.”

“That is one courtesy I will grant my murderer.”

“Why did Sanrio Rampersaud kill himself? Why not fight on so that he could see you again, if he so loved you?”

“Because there is a torture that even Hullen cannot endure.”

“What torture?”

“It’s coming,” Luketic rasps.

“What’s coming? Why does everyone keep saying that?” Dutch looks at Keoh’s body.

“Whatever we once were, is now scattered to the wind. We worked together to ensure our mutual survival, but that time is at an end. Time to shed the unnecessary flesh.” Luketic attempts to look her over with his working eye. Several breaths later, she can no longer stand his gaze and looks away first. “Never have I looked upon one so beautiful. Grant me one question of my own.”

“Go ahead.” She still has the pistol trained on him.

“What did you do with the Lady’s Cabinet orchid, that my brother Sanrio so kindly procured for me?”

“I sold it to the next highest bidder.” A sob threatens to expose her compassion.

“Oh.” Luketic drops his head. “I would have liked to have seen it. Beauty is so rare in this life. You understand why I would devote it to my flowers.”

Dutch can’t take any more. She turns and walks away before the tears come.

იტი

Cocks crow and D'avin realises that he’s slept through the night. Maybe he can do this without drugs after all. He still wants them, though. Bliss to feel better, copazenol to sleep, or the strongest pain-killers available on the black market, anything to stop the constant nagging in his head. The knowledge that no matter what he does, he'll always wake up after two, three, four hours. But he can't do that, not now, not while John is away and everything is up in the air.

Not while she needs him to be at his best.

They do indeed take advantage of his morning wood, and he pounds Gina in the cramped shower, bathed in dawn through the tiny stained-glass window. Her breasts are very small, firm handfuls in his massive paws, and whimpers escape from her rose-bud lips as she is overcome, but all D’avin can think about is Dutch in the blue dress.

Gina brings him coffee while he is dressing in yesterday’s clothes. She ties her hair up with baling twine and pulls on muddy leather boots to take the dog for a walk. “This one’s mine,” she lets a beagle out of the kennels, “and the other one belongs to a client, but it’s too far on a poorly liver, so we’ll just take Dulci. Won’t we, girl? Oh yes, you’re so good.”

Dulci wags her tail frenziedly, can barely keep still to meet an alpha-scented stranger, and she and D’avin are soon friends. “Hey there, girl.” He crouches, and Dulci licks his hand as he rubs her down. “What’s the story? Does she treat you well?”

“She’s spoiled rotten,” says Gina, hanging the leash around her neck for safekeeping, “and hardly ever has to work, unlike her mistress. You’ve had dogs?”

“Never. Although we would’ve liked it.”

“Sad story.” Gina leads him out of the small cottage garden, filled with wild-flowers, and fastens the gate.

“Even sadder. My baby brother always wanted a puppy, but our father wouldn’t let him. Anyway, one day, a family friend asked him to look after a Labrador puppy for a few days because it was a gift for their daughter. He bonded with the damn thing, but then the girl’s birthday came, and you should have seen his face when he had to give it back. It was heart-breaking. I never want to see that again.”

“Saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“The daughter wasn’t even that into having a puppy. I would’ve done anything to stop him hurting like that.” It's not really about the damn dog. And he's had to see that face too many times since.

They walk companionably for a while with bronze leaves falling all around them, and he thinks it might not be such a bad place to settle, if the compulsion ever took him. Dulci brings him a stick, lowering herself in adulation. He throws it for her, a proper pitch, and it disappears into the thicket with Dulci’s hind legs wobbling as she pelts after it.

“That’s done it,” says Gina, “she worships you now. Leader of the pack.”

“I don’t know about that,” he laughs, “she’ll forget me as soon as you will.”

She looks at him then, communicating a pang of remorse. This is how it must be for people like them. No strings attached. She knows better than to ask to see him again. It will just be one of those things, a story about a guy she met and didn’t try to hold onto, although she may have wanted it. He belongs to someone else, and always will.

It’s only sex.

They wander into the surrounding park-land, Dulci racing before them and across a glen. D’avin takes Gina’s hand to help her climb down a bank and they discover the ruins of an old chapel and baptismal pool, the nearby stream forded by stepping stones.

Water always does something to him, as if he is connected to it. Not salt water, like the sea on Qresh, but sweet and glassy and fresh. A cooling, refreshing relief from the hunt or the fight, and it always brought such joy, even while he was reduced to an animal in that cave. So often he’s been treated like an animal, by Dad, by the army, fighting for survival on the Arcturus. Well, he’s had enough. He wants more from life. “Did this belong to the Scar-backs?” He tries the first stepping stone and slips, then recovers.

“Oh, no.” Gina sits on one of the low, mossy walls. “It’s much older than that. It’s a chantry of the manor. My place used to be the gate-house.”

He’s in the centre of the stream now, balancing on a rickety rock. “The others would've loved this.” It’s nice, talking about everything and nothing. So much easier to open up to people you don’t know and will never see again. Yet every moment of this is precious, wading in the healing properties of wild and autumn, a place to explore desire and regret.

“You love her, don’t you?” Gina says unexpectedly. “I know you’re not married, but it’s obvious.”

Funny old word that, love. Can mean so many things. “She came for me when no-one else would have, never gave up. And I will always do the same.”

“Noble indeed.”

“The beauty and irony of Dutch,” he says, relishing the words because he knows they will never be passed on, “is that she was never meant to be a soldier, never meant to be an assassin. But she fights because she must. She’s from a family of musicians and artists and scientists, and she’d much rather be singing, or dancing, or throwing a terrible, terrible pot.” He crinkles his eyes in affection and Gina laughs along with him. Saying these things seems disloyal somehow. As if Dutch could be reduced to a mere paragraph spoken to a stranger in the woods. She is infinitely more than he could ever know. “She knows everything about healing plants and poisons, and she’s generous to a fault. But like all people drafted into a war not of their making, or choosing, her greatest tragedy is that she may lose all that.”

“What about you?” The light through the leaves catches wisps of Gina's hair and he thinks that maybe, in another life, he might have stayed for more. “Are you losing that?”

“I was born to be a soldier,” he says, “had a gun in my hand so long, I don’t know how to do anything else.”

On the way back, they stop by a tree with ribbons and prayers fluttering all over it, sheering off in tatters to the wind. He feels guilty and turns his PDD back on, checks for messages from Dutch. Gina picks the last of her hot-house tomatoes and they eat lunch in silence, screwing one last time for luck.

Now he knows the true meaning of bitter-sweet.

When it’s time to go, Gina tiptoes to give him a kiss on the cheek. “Take care of that beautiful brain of yours. You know where to find me if you end up full of holes again.”

As he walks down the lane, back in the direction of civilisation, he won’t allow himself to turn and look at her; he knows he won’t go back.

იტი

“They’re ultramarine, I’ve been told.” He comes into Dutch’s room uninvited, to find her with her back turned and something lying before her on the bed. She doesn’t respond. “My eyes,” he says.

“Guy says he’s gonna grab a quickie, still isn’t back over thirty hours later. No, of course I wasn’t worried.”

“I’m,” he steps forward cautiously, “sorry?”

She turns, and he can see that her eyes are red. “I’m losing control of everything, D’av.”

“That’s not—”

“I lost Johnny way before he quit town,” she says, and tears threaten again, “now I’m losing you.”

“Don’t say that—”

But she cuts him off. “I won’t blame you if you want to go.”

“I’m not going anywhere. We’re in this together, you and me, and I won’t quit ‘til I know all those green bastards are wiped from existence, because I know you won’t either.” He knows he smells of someone else’s perfume as he comes closer and sits next to her on the bed, fresh autumn leaves and outdoors. Now he sees that the object in front of her is the red box. “You got it? How?”

“I went after Luketic.”

A thousand questions come to mind, but he looks at the box instead. “What do you think is in it?”

“Someone who doesn’t deserve to die, like Safiyeh, or someone who does. Either way, I needed to know.”

“Open it.”

“But I don’t think I can. Remember what happened last time?”

“Unless there’s evidence of further cloning activities, I think you should take pot luck.”

She stares at it a little longer, avoiding the clasp with her fingers. Wouldn’t do to have it pop open by accident. “The universe doesn’t need another Aneela.”

“Look,” he says softly, “whatever you decide to do, I’ll stand by you.”

“I know you will.” She gets up, opens the closet and puts the box on a shelf. “But I’m not ready yet.”

He exhales. “Booze?”

“Hells yes.” She turns to him with grateful, hungry eyes, and they go to the Royale to disseminate the gossip to Pree and raise a riot. But whatever happens, he knows they’ll be sleeping alone-together again tonight.


	8. Shitty Cologne and Sexual Tension

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lucy suffers the repercussions of the team's previous adventures, and nothing much else happens.
> 
> Note:- This started life as a tag to 'A Skinner Darkly' (ep 3.02), however it soon became clear that it would not work within the time frame, so instead we have Dutch and D'av basically being bored and kicking back. I know I said a chapter a week while season 4 airs, and that obviously hasn't happened, but I'm not abandoning this, promise!
> 
> Soundtrack for this chapter is 'The Longer I Run', by Peter Bradley Adams.

* * *

 

იტი

 _“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”_  
―Neil Gaiman

იტი

 

Horace Lichloathe, head of Old-Town municipal sanitation, is tied to the recycled chair in the designated refuse area. He watches the mean lady answer her PDD.

 _“Are you torturing someone again?”_   A man’s face fills the screen. He seems pissed.

“Little bit,” says the mean lady.

 _“What did we talk about, hmmm?”_  says the man.

“Don’t worry,” Mean Lady rolls her eyes, “he’s not an enemy combatant, so we don’t need to follow war conventions.”

Horace looks from one to the other as they speak. Now that they're talking about war-crimes, he thinks he might piss his pants.

 _“Not making me feel any better,”_  says the man. _“You want me to come down?”_

“And spoil my fun?”

_“Seriously. I’m coming down there right now.”_

“I’m messing with you. No-one is getting tortured,” says Mean Lady, and Horace exhales in relief. “Yet.”

Mean Lady stalks menacingly around Horace’s chair until the man arrives.

“I get it. You bring this one in to hurt me, right?” says Horace. A drip of sweat runs down the side of his face, either from the sweltering heat or the bondage he's found himself in. He doesn't know how they got into his office, or how they got the drop on him, all he knows is the lady hasn't responded very favourably to his attempts to bribe her, she's too determined for that.

“Oh, no,” says the man, rolling up his shirt-sleeves and leaning against the door-frame, “I'm the guy who's gonna save you from her.”

“Just your bad luck we decided to stop trying to interrogate Hullen and torture a few of their human crap-tags instead. We know you’re helping them, Horace.” Mean Lady’s spittle hits him in the face upon every plosive consonant.

“I’m not telling you wank bags anything.” Something is happening in Horace’s pants. Yep, definitely cloudy with a chance of urine.

“Whatever they’re paying you, whatever they’ve threatened you with,” Mean Lady spits again, “it’s all over soon. We won’t rest until every last one of those cock nuggets are either cured or puking their slimy green parts out of their ears. So whatever reward you think you’ll receive—”

Horace interrupts. “T—t—technically, they can’t puke out of their ears.”

“They will when I’m finished with them.” She looks at the man. “He’s rather cheeky, isn’t he? Did we bring a shusher?”

“What’s a shusher?” says Horace.

“Oh, here’s one.” She holds up a fist and socks him in the mouth. “Shush.”

Horace’s head snaps back. “Ow.”

“What are you complaining about?” she says. “Still got your teeth in your mouth.”

“Technically,” shrugs the man. Horace knows what he means, they are kinda gnarly. Good dentists are hard to find on Westerley.

“Now tell me where your bosses are, or I’ll make you wish you’d only crapped your liver out of your ears.” Mean Lady whips a knife out of somewhere—her hair he thinks. Did she really just take a knife out of her hair? He starts to tremble uncontrollably. He’s just a sanitation engineer, he should never have got mixed up in this, but what those green bastards will do to him is far worse than what the mean lady could dish out, right?

Right?

She holds the blade against his sweaty temple and applies a slight pressure. Horace feels taught skin burst, not too much, just enough to draw blood and scare the crap out of him.

“Dutch,” says the man, a note of warning in his voice.

“Not now,” she says, turning back to Horace, figuring out a shape to carve into his face. Horace feels warm liquid begin to snake down the inside of his thigh and soak into the seat of his Company issue work-wear.

“Yes now,” says the man.

Mean Lady turns her head, almost like a reptile. “What?” she says, her voice loaded with venom.

“A word please.” The man goes to the corner, obviously wanting her to follow him. They speak in hushed tones, but Horace can still hear them.

“What’s the matter, got cold feet?” she says spitefully.

“This doesn’t sit comfortably with me.” The man glances over, arms folded.

“We’re trying to catch Hullen here,” says the lady, “we don’t have time for comfortably.”

“All I’m saying is, I think you’re letting your anger over Khlyen transfer onto this guy. He’s just a human. A shitty human, I’ll grant you, but still a human. He clearly doesn’t know anything. You carve up an innocent man, and—You sure you want that on your conscience?”

“You know your problem?” says the lady. “You’re too nice.”

“Nice?”

“Fancy was right. You haven’t got what it takes to—”

“Torturing humans is not what I signed up for when you started this war.”

“Look, if this is too hot for you, feel free to leave. I’ll come get you when it’s over.”

“And leave you to do gods know what to this poor sap?”

“You didn’t seem to mind it last time—”

“You’ve taken it too far this time.” The man looks over at Horace. “He’s pissing himself.”

“Screw you.” The lady turns and starts marching back to Horace, but the man catches her arm.

“I won’t let you do this—”

Her face turns ugly and she speaks in a low growl, looking at her bicep. “Get your hands off me. Now.”

“Walk away.”

“Don’t you—” She wrenches herself out of his grip.

“I said take a walk!”

Horace glances between the two, eyes wide with fear. The smell of his own urine rises up, exacerbated by the stifling heat.

“Alright. But know this; I'm only going to fetch the testicle vice, and you'd better still be here when I get back.” Mean Lady leaves by the fire exit, fixing the man with a grim stare the whole time, until she is out of sight.

“I am so sorry about this.” The man swoops down and starts untying Horace.

“That’s,” Horace swallows, “that’s quite alright.”

“No, it’s not,” says the man, “last time she blinded the poor guy. I don’t want to see that again.”

Horace massages his wrists. “If you let me go, I w—w—won’t press charges.”

“Yeah, no, of course.” The man pinches the bridge of his nose. “I know you won’t. Just gotta figure out a way to get you past her.”

“There’s a, uh, secret tunnel just off the grinder that leads to the sewer.” Horace looks up at him hopefully.

“Let’s go.”

Horace goes first, leading the way to the grinder. “Was she really going to—”

“Oh, yeah.” The man gives him a sympathetic smile. The grinder looms menacing before them, and the man looks it over. “To be honest, I’m scared for my own life most of the time.”

“Why do you stay with her, then?” Horace opens the door to the sewer with his secret code.

“I owe her a debt.”

“Is that all?” They stop in the dank sewer tunnel. The scorching weather is not helping the smell situation. The man seems to be thinking through his options. “Come with me,” Horace says impulsively.

“What?”

“The people who are paying me to dispose of the bodies would let you name your price for inside information.”

“I’m,” that man hesitates, “not sure.”

“Look at it this way,” says Horace, “that woman’s a psychopath. It’s only a matter of time before she hurts you too. You don’t owe her anything. You can be free.”

The man blinks, takes a deep breath. “Name my price, you say?”

“Literally anything you want. My masters can make it happen.”

The man exhales loudly. “Okay.”

Horace pats down his pockets, but finds only damp overalls. “Give me your device.”

The man unlocks it and hands it over. Horace dials his overlords. No sooner has he done it than there is a weird beeping in the device and a cackling laugh coming from deeper in the tunnel.

Horace watches in confusion as the man also dissolves into giggles. “I’m sorry,” he says, wiping one eye, “I can’t keep it up any longer.”

The lady comes out of the shadows. “You were right,” she says, recovering her composure, “he is absolutely thick as pig-shit.”

“You were great,” says the man, taking his PDD back from Horace.

“What about you,” says the lady, “and your ‘take a walk.’ Brilliant. Just brilliant.”

“Well, I try.”

“How did you—” starts Horace.

“You get to be the bad cop next time,” she says, ignoring Horace.

“But you do it so well.”

“Yeah,” the lady smiles, “I do.”

They beam at each other appreciatively. “Um,” says Horace, “how did you—”

The man rips Horace’s top shirt button down. “You’ve got a sensor on you. Your heart rate spiked when I mentioned Khlyen.”

“Shit.” Horace stares helplessly at his own chest. There’s no point in running, they’ll just hunt him down and shoot him. Or worse.

“So,” the man turns to the lady, “what are we gonna do with him?”

“We got what we need.” The lady takes out her own device and presses something. “Triangulating their position on Leith now.”

“We could, you know,” the man whistles for punctuation, “dump him in the grinder.”

Horace’s knees start to tremble.

“Nah,” says the lady, “I promised the union I’d hand him over for corruption.”

“Corruption?” says Horace, as the man hand-cuffs him and slams him up against the sewer wall.

“Taking bribes to improperly dispose of human remains, according to your confession.” He waves the PDD in front of Horace’s face. “Hoisted by your own petard.”

“I’d say it was more of a premature prevarication,” says the lady.

“All in all, a pretty good snow job,” says the man as they drag Horace away.

იტი

“Aw hells, I'm no good at this shit.” D'avin sits in front of the holo-phone. “So I'm just gonna say, not mad at you, but when you don’t call when you say you will, Madame Mansur is a royal pain in the ass. You'd better bring her back a shit-load of duty-free, that's all I’m gonna say. Can't talk about what's going on here for security reasons, so I thought I'd indulge you with the story I refused to tell you when you were twelve. I don't want to spoil the ending, but it involves a sexer by the name of Candy Floss, a full size can of beer, and the phrase, ‘your vagina is not a storage locker’.” He stops when he hears Dutch laughing in the cock-pit. “Hey, didn't anyone ever tell you eavesdropping is for perverts?”

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!”

“What?” says D’avin, heading for the cock-pit. “What did I do?”

“Not you.” Dutch touches controls as he takes the co-pilot’s seat beside her. They are twenty thousand klicks from Leith, approaching the light side. “It’s Lucy. Air con’s down again.”

“We still have life support, though. Air is air. It’s not like we’re sharing a ride with a squad of marines all sharting their beef dinner.”

She looks at him sideways in distaste. “It’s already hot enough in the Quad. We don’t want it hot inside Lucy too. There’s no-where to bloody escape to.”

“Cold shower?” D’avin squints.

 _“Oh, dear,”_   says Lucy, _“I seem to have developed a potato malfunction due to the failure of my horse.”_

Dutch and D’avin look at each other. “What the hells?” mouths D’avin.

“Lucy,” says Dutch, “please tell me it’s just your language centre on the fritz and not the controls. If you crash and kill us, I’m so telling John.”

 _“Automatic,”_  says Lucy, her voice fracturing a little, _“federal bubble encounter, jubilant pie.”_

“Pie?” says Dutch. “Now we know we’re in trouble.”

იტი

Truette Mee-Yoon pulls her head out of Lucy’s guts and reaches for another tool. “I see the problem,” she says, wiping blue coolant fluid from her cheek.

Dutch stands a little way away, her arms folded across her chest in concern. She motions to whisper to D’avin and he bobs his head in response. “She’d better not rip us off just because Johnny rejected her advances,” she hisses behind her hand.

D’avin tuts. “Ix-nay on the ick-day. Not like him to turn down nerd boobs.”

“She keeps looking at me like she hates me,” says Dutch, “or I’m stupid.”

“She keeps looking at me like I’m dinner.”

“Shhh.” Dutch digs him in the ribs. “She’s coming over.”

“Yeaaah.” Tru wipes her hands on a rag from her tool chest. “See, what you got here is a bad case of silicosis of the air filter. You haven’t flown her in a sand-storm, by any chance?”

“We might’ve—” Dutch looks contrite, wrinkles her nose, “gotten caught in a dust cloud at some point.”

“This ain’t no ordinary dust,” continues Tru, “this is crystalline silica.”

“Shit,” D’avin curses through gritted teeth, “come halfway across the J and still can’t get away from the stuff.”

“If it was regular amorphous sand it wouldn’t be a problem,” says Tru, “but this shit’ll work its way right into her lady package. Seeks out anything else it can find made of crystalline and shorts it. If you’da left it any longer, you’da been hiring an undertaker, not a mechanic.”

“How much damage?” says Dutch.

“She’s totally janked, so you’re lookin’ at dry-dock. Prob’ly get to her within the week.”

“A week?” exclaims D’avin, his mood exacerbated by the humidity. “We can’t stay grounded for a week, we have work to do—”

Dutch lays a hand on his arm. “How much will it cost to bump her to the top of the list?”

Tru looks downright hurt she would even suggest it. “I can’t just blow off my regular clients for a couple o’ pendejos who don’t know how to treat a fine specimen of engineering.”

“There must be something we can do,” says D’avin.

Tru looks him up and down. “Well, that all depends, darlin’.”

“On what?” Dutch narrows her eyes.

“On what you’re doing tonight.” She winks at D’avin. “What you’d say to a bottle o’ yrda hokk and a dancin’ tune on the ole juke down at the Pig and Whistle Inn?”

“I’d say,” D’avin swallows, struggling to maintain a neutral expression, “I’m very flattered, but I’m not available.”

“Shame,” Tru sucks air in through her teeth, “’cause you’ve got a scent about you, y’know. Must be the apocrine secretions, what with the weather an’ all.”

D’avin just blinks in disbelief.

“How about a thousand joy,” says Dutch.

“How about two?” says Tru, still looking at D’avin.

“One and a half,” says Dutch, “or we take our business elsewhere.”

“Done,” says Tru, spitting on her hand.

იტი

“I don’t think your aroma’s what she was hinting at, D’av.” But yeah, he does smell great. Oh, wonderful, now she’s obsessed with his smell. She sniffs his shoulder as they walk through the small town of Tithebarn. They seem to be having some kind of never-ending harvest event, people thronging about testing pumpkin soup and thimbles of home-brew amongst bales of straw and bunting. “What is it anyway?”

“Sexy stank.”

“No such thing.” Dutch picks up and pays for a skewer of weta bugs from one of the vendors.

“Sure there is. It's ninety percent antiperspirant, but with a back story.”

“Back story?” she says through a full mouth.

“Yeah, like a day's hard work.”

“You are disgusting sometimes.”

“What are we gonna do while Lucy’s getting her fix on?” He skips a step and walks backwards playfully as they talk.

“I’ll call Turin and tell him we have to delay our raid.” She takes another bite of bug. “To be honest, I’m surprised you didn’t take Tru up on her offer.”

“Yeah, well, I could suddenly see me having that conversation with Johnny. Something about sloppy seconds.”

“Guess we have a day to kill then. In a ninety-five-degree heatwave.” She finishes the bugs and cleans her hands on the napkin, throwing the debris in a nearby recycling receptacle.

“Idea.” D’avin grabs her hand.

“What are you doing?”

“Showing you something.”

იტი

“It’s a—”

“Lake,” says D’avin, “yeah. I found it when I was checking out the RAC’s real-estate portfolio. Come on.” He beckons her to follow him to the end of a small, decrepit jetty that looks like it probably won’t hold their weight.

Okay, she’ll indulge him, just this once. “If I get devoured by mosquitoes, I’m not gonna be happy.”

“Don’t be such a buzz-kill.” He sits on the end of the jetty and pats the deck for her to sit beside him, looking at her like an excited puppy. “Relax for once. Take a look around. Tell me what you think.”

She sits slowly, carefully, dangling her legs off the edge and taking the scene in. The lake must be a half-mile wide and there is a haze of tiny parachuting seeds hovering over the water. The water itself is motionless like glass and just as clear. Birds twitter in the pine trees around the edge and a fox _yip-yips_ in the distance. “It’s beautiful.”

“Good,” says D’avin, “’cause you’re going in.”

“I’m what?” she turns to him. He has what she calls the mischief profile. John does it too, when he knows he’s doing something wrong.

“I don’t get it. How can you space yourself to get to Lucy, save all our asses, run into fire, the list of bad-assery goes on and on—”

“Tryin’a have a little hero moment, Jaqobis? Tryin’a fix me?”

“No,” he says, “it’s purely tactical. Sooner or later you will get yourself into trouble in water and that’s a liability.”

She looks at him wryly. “You’re afraid of spiders.”

“Hells yeah,” he says, “have you seen the spiders where I’m from? They’re as big as a fist and lay eggs in your brain given half a chance. That fear is justified. Water fear is irrational.”

“Not fear exactly, just—” She gazes at the bottom of the lake, knowing full well it’s a lot deeper than it looks by refraction. “It just seems like such a stupid, wasteful way to die. All bloated and soggy—”

He watches her watching the ripples fleeing the stone he throws in. “Dutch, did something happen to you?”

She turns away, can’t look at him. Nope. Not this. Not now. “Not me.”

“Who?”

She takes a breath, swallows, squeezes her eyes shut for strength. “When I said there weren’t any pools on my planet, I lied.”

“Okay.”

“There was one, that I knew of.”

“Go on.”

“Khlyen made me drown someone in it.” She takes a breath. He seeks out the touch of her hand on the deck beside him and squeezes it, just the fingers, letting go before it becomes something it’s not. “It wasn’t a regular red-box type challenge. It was out in the wilderness, training in stealth. This old man surprised us at our camp. He hadn’t done anything wrong, but Khlyen couldn’t leave a witness to what we were doing, so he decided it would be a good lesson. How to make it look like an accident. I was thirteen.”

D’avin swallows audibly. “It’s not your fault, you know that, right?”

She looks out across the water. “Doesn’t seem like he belongs here. Like I shouldn’t contaminate it by saying his name. Like I shouldn’t contaminate it with me.”

“This lake doesn’t need to be kept pure away from Khlyen. This lake is Khlyen. How will you ever rule if you don’t conquer this?”

“Maybe this lake is your brain.” She finally looks at him. He asked for that. 

“Together then,” he resolves.

“Okay,” she says, “but if I’m to go in, I’ll need a little quid pro quo first.”

“Name your price.” There it is. There’s her D’avin smile.

“What was her name, the girl?”

He gives a humourless laugh then, reels from the cleverness of her. He walked right into that. “Bonnie,” he says.

“Mmm, Bonnie. Sounds appropriately hayride. How did you—” the words loll around in her mouth like stones, “meet?”

“That was hard, wasn’t it?”

“Normal people conversation. Yep.”

“Her family was the only family I knew that was more messed up than mine.” He looks down and to the side, like it’s difficult. “And her parents were only together because of a shared love of drink and gambling.”

“Sounds familiar.”

“One day, her mother met and fell in love with another man, walked out intending never to go back, but that very same night, Bonnie's father shot himself in the head right in front of her. My dad was the first responder and he found her on her knees in the brains trying to clean it up. She thought she’d get in trouble for the mess, you see. So, he brought her home to stay with us until child services got around to her. Kindest thing I ever saw him do.” Here he gives another humourless snort.

“How long did she stay?”

“Until the mother came back. Of course, she brought the new boyfriend with her, claimed the insurance, moved back into the same house. I think the stepfather started beating her, but I can never be sure. I didn't see her for quite a while after that, until she joined my class in ninth grade. High school kids can be cruel. Crueller than any adult enemy I've ever fought."

“They were cruel to you?”

“Until I learned to fight back. It was Bonnie I was worried about. If there's even a tiny thing different about you, they're on you like a pack of wolves, and she had a lot going on. They used to graffiti the walls saying what happened was her fault, y'know, wouldn't leave it alone. They already thought I was weird, 'cause—well, you know.”

She knows he showed up late for the start of ninth grade, malnourished after that summer in the wilderness. Tougher, yes, but also damaged, he told her once in maudlin drunkenness. “So you were weird together.”

“We did everything together. First sex, first everything. We thought our lives were all planned out, were gonna get work on the Collective after graduation, but then all that shit kicked off with my dad—”

“So,” she tips her head slowly in fascination, “she thought you’d balked, that you left without saying anything? What?”

D’avin shakes his head, and she can see something behind his eyes, regret, yes, but something else. He’s mocking himself. “I wrote to her, of course, but after a while the replies just… stopped. I saw her by chance a few years later. We were older, a little bit wiser, I hoped—different people. We had coffee and she asked me to be a sperm donor for her new girlfriend.”

“You didn’t—”

“No way.” He screws up his face. “No-one wants to get a knock on the door twelve years later and some kid saying ‘hi, I think you’re my dad’. That does happen, you know. More often than you’d think. I can’t stand people who have kids because of peer pressure, or to get the stupid government bonus money, or because of some misguided social responsibility. I hate people who have kids when they have no business having kids. I hate—”

“Easy tiger,” says Dutch, “your daddy issues are showing.”

“But it wasn’t that. It was finding out things weren’t how I thought they were, way back when we were kids, that we weren’t even on the same page. I’d wasted years writing to her, waiting for her. Knowing I put everything into something that wasn’t reciprocated nearly destroyed me. I thought it was this grand romance, but to her, I was just a meal ticket.” He trails off into bitter laughter.

“You were young.”

“Young, dumb and full of—”

“You’re not the only one who’s ever made a fool of themselves, D’avin.”

“Alvis,” he nods.

“He’s married to God. Or a Tree. Or something.”

“Didn’t realise you guys were that serious.”

“We’re not, but he was one of the first people I met after arriving in the Quad and—”

But he doesn’t seem to be listening, staring out at the lake. “It was never going to last anyway, even if she—People shouldn’t marry their best friends. People shouldn’t get married period.”

“Especially not to get out of a harem.”

“Sorry, I didn’t—”

She rocks back, sitting on her hands. “It’s fine. What’s passed is past.”

“If you ever want to talk about it—”

Yeah, right, expound on her murdered husband with Mister Let’s-Talk-About-Our-Feelings. “I won’t. Let’s just do this.”

D’avin takes a deep breath. “Now, you have a choice. You can jump right off here, or we can wade in from the edge.”

“Edge.”

They go back the way they came until they come to a shingle beach, stripping their clothes off down to the underwear. Dutch puts her right foot in first. Just a bigger bath-tub, she says to herself, there are no pale, bloated horror-corpses waiting to take you down to the revenge you deserve.

“You got this,” says D’avin, taking her hand, “it’s just like dancing.”

“You’re loving this, aren’t you?” she says as he leads her deeper and deeper, up to the thigh. There are pebbles under her feet, plants sliding across her legs. Cold water jolts the warm centre of her. If she had balls they would be shrinking right now. “Promise me you won’t tell John.”

“Can’t have him thinking you’re only human after all.”

She lets him know exactly what she thinks about that with a half-smile and a narrowing of the eyes. Oh, he’s going to be in trouble later. He’s up to his shoulders now, and she’s up to her chin. She is surprised by the feeling of buoyancy. It’s different to zero G, different to the bathtub. She can see why people like it. “This is far enough.”

He’s still walking backwards, lightly holding her hands. “Nope.”

“What d’you mean 'nope'?” Her big-toe barely tickles the slimy stones at the bottom and her hair weighs down her head.

“I’ve got you.” He doesn’t break eye-contact, not even once. “I won’t let you go.” He’s right. She needs this. She shoves down the rising panic, the hard lump in her throat. Her heart pounds in her ears, drowning out the gentle lapping of the water at her cheeks. She tips her face up to the blue sky, the outline of nightfall on Westerley etched across it, and gasps as her feet leave the bottom. To her surprise, she does not sink. She kicks instinctively, D’avin holding her hands. He’s up to his chin now, so the water must be over her head. There’s no going back. “See, just like dancing,” he says.

She’s not sure how it happens, but her attempts to tread water end up with her arms clinging around his neck. It’s nice pressing their waxy, shivery flesh together, even if it’s through the wet fabric of her bra-set. Her taught nipple brushes his arm, but he doesn't seem to notice. He holds her damsel-style, under her knees and behind her back. “People will talk,” she says.

Something passes silently between them in the meeting of their eyes. Their faces are close. Too close. He is wet—she’s not sure when he ducked his head under—and his lashes drip as he looks at her intensely. She hates being so vulnerable, but she doesn’t mind that it’s with him. After all, he did share something exposing with her. She is acutely aware of the touch of their skin. This is a very dangerous situation. All she’d have to do would be to close the gap between their lips.

“Let them,” he finally says.

“You got your hero moment,” she smirks.

“Yeah, but who’s gonna save me?” There’s that look of slight mischief again. “We’re going under now. Ready?”

“Wait—”

“What?”

“Eyes open or closed?”

“Open.” He goes to duck them both.

“Wait!”

“What now?”

“Space is predictable. I know how things work in zero G. I don’t know what to—”

“Water’s exactly the same. You won’t sink. It’s impossible. When you’re underwater, your body responds by becoming more efficient. It’s called the diving reflex, means you can hold your breath a lot longer than on land. We were always meant to be in water. You were made for this.”

“Okay,” she says slowly, and she hates that the trepidation in her voice is completely real and honest. But what was it that John said once? That you can’t be tough all the time—it’s exhausting.

“If you’re worried, hyperventilate first.”

She takes three ridiculously big gulps of breath.

And they take the plunge.

It is not what she expected. She’s not sure why, but she expected it to feel like being spaced. It does not. It is calming and serene. Her hair floats out like a mermaid's and, even though her vision is a little blurred, she sees D’avin smile at her, full of pride, a sheen of oxygen clinging to his skin. He breathes out a little to relieve the pressure and she does the same. Yes, that’s better.

The green plasma is supposed to be a repository for all memory, well, here they are making a new one. This clear, greenish lake will hold the power of overcoming her demons, flowing like a conduit forever. Here she leaves her fear. Here, fear leaves her. If she can do this, then she can win, she can have her victory.

D'avin lets her float away from him a little, but she’s been unconsciously counting the seconds, forty-five now, and the urge to push off the bottom is too strong.

იტი

Later, when they are lying on the gravel beach, drying off in the afternoon sun, she turns to him and says, “It worked. I’m cooler now.”

“Maybe we can stop sniping at each other for a few hours,” he says. “I have to admit, I didn’t expect you to be a natural.”

“And nothing like a demented sloth.”

“Absolutely nothing like a demented sloth,” he laughs.

“Thank you for telling me about your Bonnie.” She picks at a strand of her hair. It has sprung into its natural curls and it’s going to take a while to remove all the little bits of flotsam and jetsam. “You know, I don't really know you. Even after all this time.”

“Every important moment was right by your side. Nothing else matters.”

“Yeah, but I'm sure there are things I should know.”

“Fine. I can't stand liquorice, I'm really, really bad at poker, and these aren't my real front teeth.”

She laughs. “How did that happen?”

“Hurling.”

“I meant why don't you stay? What are you looking for?” She turns onto her side and the damp of her underwear leaves a dark print on the stones.

“Maybe I’m looking for something that’s too hard to find.”

“Be more specific.”

“Tenderness. An end to being constantly violated. What about you?”

“You mean what am I looking for?” she says, and he nods, _uh-huh_. “I just want everyone to be fine.”

“That’s not you, that’s everyone else.”

“I just want everyone to survive, and for it not to be my fault if they don’t.”

“That’s still about everyone else.”

“What do you want me to say? I don’t plan for the future.”

“Oh, right, that’s what that retirement fund is for.”

“I mean,” she closes her eyes in consternation, “it’s not like I have a picket-fence fantasy, but it would be nice not to have to kill to eat.”

“Somehow I can’t imagine you not killjoying.”

“Maybe I just want a normal life. One where no-one’s trying to kill me every five minutes.” When she looks at him, he is sad.

“That’s not a bad ambition,” he says.

“The only way I’m going to get that is if we stop Aneela.” She turns away again.

D’avin pulls his jeans on and goes back to the rambler for their drinks, so she takes the opportunity to scoop up his PDD from the pebbles. For someone who knows surveillance, he’s pretty rubbish at choosing passwords. She glances at him searching in a bag, making sure he won’t discover her snooping, and scrolls to his messages. They are mostly from her, but one is from an unknown number. _I’m free for a couple days if you’re on Leith,_ it says. He hasn't replied. It’s good that he’s getting his needs met, whoever the person might be, but it’s nice that he’s here with her, instead of responding to the booty-call. She squirrels the device away in his discarded shirt before he comes back and nestles her cold algae brew in the gravel.

იტი

The red box has been in her room a long time, unopened, because she wasn’t ready until now. Finally she opens it, sitting with D’avin by their twilight fire in the wilds of Leith.

“What is it?” says D’avin, his face lit by the orange flames.

“I was hoping it would be a Black-Root commandant. Or at least something important to the war effort.”

She takes out two objects and places the box carefully beside her. There is a poison dart, like Khlyen’s anti-Hullen toxin, only full of something blue, and a small slip of paper.

“What does it say?”

Dutch unfolds it and starts laughing maniacally. “Nope,” she says through tears, “no way. Argh, I hate him.”

She passes him the slip of paper. It’s in a lexicon he can’t read. “You told me Luketic said he hoped the box contained the cure for his condition—”

“It does. In a way.”

“Dutch, what does it say?”

“D’avin Jaqobis.”

“What?” He tries to see something meaningful in the calligraphy. Apostrophes don't translate well. “This. This is what we went on a wild goose chase for?”

The fire crackles and wildlife howls in the woods behind them. Dutch holds up the poison. “It’s a fail-safe, in case you ever betrayed me.”

“Well he did say he wanted me to Hullen-bodyguard you.”

“Khlyen’s precise, he would've made it specific to you—”

“Making sure you’re the only one who can kill me.” He swallows, looks down at the leaf-litter on the forest floor. “Keep it.”

“No.”

“What if the time comes and no-one can stop me?” Then he says the thing neither of them wants to think. “Except you.”

“It’s never going to come to that.”

“Lock it away then.”

“I can never be sure it’s safe, that someone else won’t try to kill you.” She tosses it into the fire, followed by the paper and the box. “There,” she says, “I’ve finally laid Khlyen to rest. One day I’ll be able to lay Aneela to rest, and what then?”

“You’ll be at war for the rest of your life, always looking for something to poke at as a distraction.”

“It’s better than being at war with yourself.” She meets his eyes then and he has his lips pressed tightly together suppressing whatever he might say wrong.

He takes out the data card with his army file. “Okay then, we both stop hating ourselves. Right now.”

“Deal.”

“Goodbye old-me.” He throws it into the fire and it lands near the box, engulfed in blue flame.

“You know Turin’s probably got a copy of that, right?”

“I know, but it’s more symbolic than anything else. There comes a time when you have to stop asking the questions, even if you don’t have all the answers.”

She holds out the knife she’s been saving.

“What’s this?”

“You need to start carrying knives again.”

He eyes it suspiciously, sitting back against a log with elbows on his knees. It's hardly a Rossi Naz, but it's nice, vanadium carbide drop-point blade with a notched choil. The spine is finely serrated, which is always useful, and the tang is finely bound with wild-boar rawhide. Unusually, it is also weighted for throwing. “Is that an order?”

“You’re vulnerable without one,” she says, “or twenty.”

“I have a knife.”

“I’m not talking about a rusty penknife that won’t cut anything harder than a peach.”

“Are you sure about this?” He turns it over and over, flips it and catches it, testing the balance.

“I trust you.”

იტი

Once they have Lucy back, Dutch rummages through D’avin’s ‘glory-box’ for the source of whatever cologne it is that makes him smell so great, the mysterious ‘sexy stank’. So far, all she’s found is a battered hip-flask, not unlike the one poor Shye was poisoned with, empty, and an old-school magnetic compass engraved with a poem. He owns precisely two shower products, one of which is unlabelled and the other a generic soap from the market. No wonder she couldn’t place it. It couldn’t be that simple, could it? Just a cheap, nondescript, unbranded soap? She opens it and sniffs it. Yep, that’s him.

იტი

“What are you doing here?” Bellus is packing up her office when he arrives.

“Told her I was fetching dinner.” D’avin stands helplessly by her desk. “What’s going on?”

“I’m leaving.”

“Slight over-reaction.”

“Not because of Miss Prissy-Pants.” Bellus continues to place ornaments in a packing carton. “I have a real daughter I’ve neglected for too long. Gotta patch things up before the shit hits the fan with these space zombies or whatever they are.”

“You have a daughter?”

“Why is that so hard to believe? Aletta. Lives on Baypoint. We haven’t seen each other for a while.”

“How long’s a while, Bell?” D’avin invites himself in and sits on her sofa amongst items of luggage.

“Twelve, thirteen years.”

“Shit,” D’avin breathes, rubbing his face. “What happened?”

“She wanted me to leave this life, went to live with her da.”

“The life of a killjoy isn’t exactly compatible with kids,” D’avin nods.

“I got this one chance before those bastards come and kill us all.” She swallows. “I left a seventeen-year-old, now I’m going back to a thirty-year-old.”

“Look, I know it’s cliché, but I’m talking from experience when I say, kids are way too forgiving of their parents.”

"Not us." Bellus stops packing and looks right at him. It’s one of the few times he’s ever seen her with her guard down. “She was so angry. But I’ve got to try.”

“Whatever you think you’ve done, doesn’t compare to the fact you need each other now.”

“I just hope you’re right.”

“Does Dutch even know you’ve got a—”

“No, and she’s never going to.”

“I don’t think that’s—”

“Think she’ll appreciate she’s a replacement daughter?”

“No.” D’avin looks at the floor, hands folded between his knees. “What should I tell her?”

“The only thing she’ll believe. Tell her I’m a coward and I’m leaving the Quad before the bad guys blow it to smithereens.”

“You should say goodbye. You're both so stubborn.”

“Trust me, when she looks back in years to come, this ain't gonna be her biggest regret.”

“Well, don’t worry about us.”

“I won’t.” Bellus smiles with one side of her mouth. “I really won’t.” He watches her pack a bit longer, until she says, “are you still here?”

“Guess I didn't know if it was the right moment to say thank you for everything.”

“Don't go all sentimental on me now, boy. It's just business, pure and simple.”

“Couldn't've got my life back without your help.”

“Well,” Bellus stops again, “there's that. And then there's me letting you crawl back no matter what you did wrong.”

“Yeah, there's always that.” D'avin smiles, but it drops when he remembers something. “There's just one thing I don't understand.”

Bellus's shoulders drop and she puts down the antlers. “Knew you'd get there eventually.”

“What is it about Luketic that made everyone freak out as soon as they knew Dutch was going after him? Enough to make you risk your relationship with her. Enough to make Turin show his hand, try to manipulate me?”

Bellus looks at him thoughtfully for a second. “Guess urban legends can grow to epic enough proportions, they got everyone pissing in their pants.”

“Nope. That's not it.”

Bellus chews the inside of her mouth. “Some things are better laid to rest.” She glances around her as if someone is listening. “All I'm saying is, you can't trust Turin.”

“I don't trust the dude any further than I can throw him, but he's not one of them.”

“Sure about that?”

“Khlyen impaled him on a sword,” D'avin frowns, “does that sound like fealty to you?”

Bellus shakes her head. “Soon as you told me level six was real, I knew what he was up to. Way back in, what was it, fifty-four, fifty-five? When they first brought me this young woman called Yalena Yardeen. I knew something was going on. She was special. Joe looked me right in the eye and told me it was nothing, but I knew he was lying.”

იტი

Dutch looks up from the dining table.

D’avin stands in the doorway to the lounge, holding the cherry-blossom tiffin carrier, a brown paper bag and a bottle of hokk. She had Lucy track him. He's been seeing Bellus behind her back. But then, she had been spying on him and searching through his kit while he was gone. They said they would be honest with each other, but all they've done is lie, lie, lie and hide. She still hasn't told him about his sleep-walking, and it's probably better that way; it would only freak him out, resurrect their dialogue about mind-control. It will be something she locks away, only to be brought out if it becomes pertinent, like so many other things she's burdened with. “Hey,” she says, smiling too brightly.

“I got you teff.” He dumps the food items on the table. “And I got the qey wot, ‘cause I know how much you like that.”

“D'avin, do you—do you think I’m too controlling?”

“Yes,” he says without hesitation, unpacking dinner.

“Oh.”

“Not always a bad thing.” He puts food in front of her and she just stares at it. “And not why Johnny left,” he adds.

They don't know how long John will be gone. Maybe scratching that itch wouldn't be so bad after all. There's no point in them both seeking out other partners while they're right here for each other, right now. But no matter how much she tries to convince herself that sleeping with D'avin would be the right thing to do, she just can't get over the memory of his fist flying toward her face, his blackened, dead eyes. He is far from dead now, chewing away at his meat, oblivious to the things she's thinking about him.

_I trust you._

She had to say it, give him the knife, otherwise the alternative is walking away from everything they've worked so hard to build.

“How are you sleeping, anyway?” she says idly, pouring them both more hokk.

“Good actually.” He washes down teff and stretches his feet out under the table. “Seems to’ve gotten better just as suddenly as it started.”

“Dreams?”

“Normal. There’s one where I’m wearing a mask for some reason, and later on, you’re wearing a mask, but it’s a different mask. I forget why.”

“So far, so Freudian. I’m happy for you.”

“Yeah, you sound really happy.”

“What? I'm genuinely interested in your nocturnal activities,” she says and he smirks. “Not those nocturnal activities.”

They eat in silence for a while and it's nice, not feeling they have to talk, and she knows they've finally reached that point; equilibrium, the 'zone'.

His bowl is empty now, so he puts down his chopsticks and rises from the table, squeezing her shoulder comfortingly on the way past. No one is more surprised than Dutch when she quickly puts her hand over his and holds him there, stopping him leaving. Rather than slide his hand out and retreat, which is what she expects him to do—what he should do—he puts his other hand on her other shoulder and begins to rub.

Her hair falls over her face as she rolls her head in pleasure. He must know what this does to her. She is desperate not to moan, let him know how it feels to have his touch on her. Goosebumps shimmer over the back of her neck at the thought of him stooping to kiss or maybe nuzzle her throat. She has a thrill deep inside, one that she hasn't felt for a long time, the thrill of the first kill, the first theft, knowing she's doing something so, so wrong.

“Go,” she says suddenly, and he stops. She squeezes her eyes shut, terrified that she’ll make a huge mistake any second. He lingers there a little longer, his fingertips hovering over her collar bone. She can sense the warmth of his body only a few centimetres away, burning, she imagines, with desire for her too. “Go,” she says again, with more emphasis.

He doesn’t say anything, and she can’t see his face, so she’ll never know how he feels about what just happened. It’s better that way. For both of them. When she’s sure he’s gone, she drops her face into her hands and lets her hair cascade onto the table, half laughing, half crying with the frustration of it all.


	9. Love and Other Selfless Acts of Egotism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set during episode 3.06 'Necropolis Now'. With Johnny back on the team, you'd think everything would be easier between Dutch and D'avin, but it's not. Attempting to navigate the expectations on her, Dutch makes a questionable move, driving an even bigger wedge between them. Meanwhile, D'avin's past comes back to haunt him in a totally unexpected way.
> 
> Soundtrack for this chapter is 'As Much as I Ever Could', by City and Colour.
> 
> Some dialogue is taken from the show. All credit goes to the writers. I own nothing but a vague sense of responsibility that I perpetually struggle to fulfil.
> 
> Also, I wrote this over the holidays so I may have actually been drunk for most of it, so apologies if it doesn't make sense!

* * *

 იტი

 _“A great woman too sang out in grief;_  
_with hair bound up, she unburdened herself_  
_of her worst fears, a wild litany_  
_of nightmare and lament: her nation invaded,_  
_enemies on the rampage, bodies in piles…_  
_Heaven swallowed the smoke.”_ —Beowulf 

იტი

 

_They are in an ordinary suburb like in the shows Mom used to watch while he was growing up. The house is cuboid, almost like the sanctuary. Lots of glass. Nice garden outside of the sliding doors and a wooden deck with a grill sitting unused because it is wintery and grey. Two children are sitting at the kitchen table completing their homework hastily before school, and the orchids are there, even though he knows they sold them._

_“But you hate kids,” he says._

_“Hate them?” Dutch laughs as she packs the kids off to the bus. “You are stupid sometimes.” Then she goes to the garden, picks up a shovel, and begins digging a hole. D’avin follows her, confused. “Get me the box,” she says._

_“What box?”_

_“The red box.”_

_He goes inside and on the kitchen table is a large red box that looks somewhat similar to Khlyen's boxes for Yala. Inside is a hessian sack tightly wrapped around an object about the size of an old-fashioned soccer ball. There is a sticky liquid seeping through the cloth. He unwraps it. At first it looks like a mouldy turnip, but it rolls to the side in the box and he can now see that it is, in fact, Banyon Grey's head._

_He drops it in shock and disgust._

_“Why are you just standing there?” Dutch calls from outside. “Help me bury it.” He picks up the box and carries out into the garden. She is angry with him for being so pathetic. “Hurry up. If we don't get rid of this, you know what they'll do. They'll take the kids away. Is that what you want?”_

_“I've never seen them before. I—I don't know where you got them from but—”_

_“Seriously,” she says, still digging, “what is wrong with you? This is not the time for a malfunction.”_

_“Are you sure we should—”_

_“Don't chicken out on me now, D’av,” she says._

_He holds tightly onto the head despite her impatience, looks down. The blood is still seeping through. He has the red star of a law-man on his shirt and a gun by his side. “You killed someone. We need to show this to the authorities.”_

_“Give it to me.” She finally snatches the head from him and the blood begins to soak through her dress, the dress she bought in the market that day—at the Leithian harvest. “We have to get rid of the evidence before John gets home.”_

_The truth dawns on him. “This is John's house.”_

_She looks at him weirdly. “This is my house. Are you on something? Is it bliss?”_

_“What? No.” He takes a step back. The grass is soggy. “I don't think so. Can't trust anything anymore.”_

_Dutch throws the head in the hole. “There.”_

_“Bury something else on top of it,” he says, “meat, in case of dogs.”_

_“Yeah,” she says, sloughing a spade of soil on top, “good thinking. Thanks for—you know.”_

_“Yeah,” he says, scratching his nose. “So those are John's kids?”_

_“Have you got a concussion? Do I have to take you to hospital as well as dealing with this?” She changes demeanour, reminds him of someone. He can't quite remember._

_“You'd never—” he hesitates, “this is bullshit. Are you even really here?”_

_“Are you?” she says, cocking her head like a reptile, and rushes to attack._

_Then he wakes up._

იტი

_He is in his bed on Lucy. He groans as the room comes into focus, and reaches for his PDD on the night stand. “Just a fricking—ugh.”_

_Lucy notices him looking at the time. “We are seventy point two nine minutes ahead of schedule en-route to the Latimer Major system, D'avin.”_

_Dutch is pouring hokk into a shitty mug when he enters the galley. She is wearing only purple knickers and one of his old shirts. “I just had the worst dream,” he says._

_She slides the mug along the counter without even looking up at him and begins to pour another. “Not your usual nightmares?”_

_He takes a swig of the alcohol and swishes it around a bit before burning his throat. He really needs to brush his teeth. “You were married to John and you had two kids.” Dutch chokes on her hokk. When she looks at him she has a drip hanging from her bottom lip. She swipes it off with the back of her hand. “And I was thinking about arresting you for murder.”_

_“And this was amusing for some reason?”_

_“No, but think about what a breakthrough this is.” He comes towards her, puts down his mug. “This is healing—” Wait, he thinks, this has happened before. This exact conversation, only she was on me then. In bed. What—_

_She stands in front of him and places her cold hands on either side of his face. “I'm happy for you.” She kisses him softly on the lips._

_“Dutch,” he says, breaking away, “why are we going to Latimer?”_

_She searches his face, hands still firmly on his cheeks. “The mission,” she says cautiously, “poisoning pools.”_

_“Yeah,” he says, “of course.”_

_“Wow, this dream really has you rattled.” She snakes her arms around him and pulls him into a hug. Her palms are nice and cool on the back of his neck._

_“It was creepy as shit,” he says into her hair. She smells great. Fantastic, in fact. His hands go to her waist. The lace knicker elastic feels nice tangled in his fingertips._

_She adjusts her position slightly to whisper in his ear. He can feel warmth of her breath. “If it makes you feel better, you can take them off.”_

_“I'm really skanky right now.” He looks down at yesterday’s clothes._

_“Yeah, but you're my skank.”_

_He glances to the side. “Where is everyone else?”_

_“Um,” she says, frowning, “where they should be. On the Rack. I made you come along for some QT on the down-low, remember?”_

_“Yeah, right,” he says, but he’s still confused._

_“Are you sure you're alright?”_

_“Yeah,” he shakes the fog from his head, “of course. Don't know what came over me.”_

_Dutch pulls him into a deeper kiss. His body responds to her and the hokk bottles rattle as he leans in. She goes for the fly of his jeans, nimble fingers working the clasp, then gives a little gasp. Then it turns into a cough._

_Something is wrong._

_He stops kissing her and examines her face. A single green tear slides down the side of her nose. He is frozen as they stare at each other. What the? She begins to convulse in his arms, and he lets go. Holy shit. She is on the floor and plasma is flowing out of every orifice._

_No, no, no, no, no…_

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_He is pursued through the corridors for quite some time. He's not exactly sure how long. Could be seconds, could be hundreds of years. The way seems to stretch before him, lengthening even as he makes progress. He can never escape._

_“What's the matter, D'avin?” Aneela laughs cruelly to one side as he skids around another corner of the maze, the dream within a dream, the never-ending insanity._

_This is his future._

_Now he is trapped inside someone else's mind._

_Now he's forced to live the same day over and over._

_Now he's howling into his pillow, smashing his head against the wall again and again—_

_And again._

_But he just can't wake up._

იტი

He wakes from the nightmare with a gasp, and Dutch is not there to ground him like she was before. Before John came back.

When people always spoke about being 'drenched' in sweat, he never really believed it was possible, but now he is drenched in sweat. His heart beats out of control and it takes a long time for his breathing to return to normal. The night-light is on, but he still has that feeling when you're holding something tightly for a long time and then it’s gone.

It’s like she’s slipping away, even though she’s still there. No, he thinks, Dutch would never allow herself to get Hullenized, would sooner die. It’s just the anxiety of getting her mixed up with Aneela. But then again, is Aneela even real? He’s the only person who’s ever seen her face to face. Maybe he is losing his mind. Or has she got some kind of power over him, a kind of connection through the green, like Khlyen invading his thoughts, hijacking his body? He calls into the ship’s-night. “I know what you're doing, you creepy-ass bitch, and I'm not gonna fall for it.”

John is at the door when he answers the beeps. He’s fully dressed—hasn’t been to bed yet—and he hitches his head to the left in lieu of words, still engrossed in the tablet in his hands.

D’avin follows him sheepishly to the lounge, painfully aware that he was probably talking in his sleep and that his distant rebuking of the Doyenne of Destruction was the last straw. He gets a glass of water in the galley, puts it on the table, and sits down to join him before bothering to start the conversation they should be having. “What are you working on?” He finally says.

“Just a little something from my scripting palace.”

“Scripting palace?” D’avin scoffs.

John taps his head. “Casa del Code, Mijo, Casa del Code.” He starts talking technical, scrolling through data, but D’avin is only half listening; all he can think about is Banyon Grey’s head in a box, until John’s voice breaks through. “It’s her again, isn’t it? Witch Tits.”

He swallows water before answering. “I think she’s found a way to get inside my head.”

“Don’t let that ass-hole Radek and his spine needle get to you when the guy’s dead and gone.” John puts the tablet down between them and meets his gaze. Two sides of the same genetic coin facing each other across the table. “I know you blame yourself for getting caught snooping around the Hullen ship but—”

“It’s not just the Rack-attack, Johnny, you’re forgetting about my little walkabout. What if it’s not my connection to the green they’ve been hijacking?”

“Don’t—”

“And I’ve been misplacing things lately—”

“Everyone does that—”

“Anyone else walks into a room and forgets why they’re there, that’s normal, but if I do it—”

John's face stops him. Neither of them want to say it out loud. “If you’re really that worried,” John says eventually, ever pragmatic, “I can have Zeph scan your brain for limbic activity. Only if you promise to keep out of the psychedelics, mind. I don’t wanna come in and find you two tripping balls again. What’s wrong? You’ve gone all—” He waves a hand in front of D’avin’s face.

“John,” he says seriously, “Delle Seyah knows about Jaeger’s research.”

“So?”

“So, she’s not stupid. She's the one who gave us Jaeger in the first place, remember. And she’d do anything to get back at you for killing her.”

“You think she might—”

“Professional responsibility compels me to explore every option. There's no way she's wasting her knight-move.” D’avin pushes himself up from the table and goes over to the galley storage. “And that’s why I’ve already taken measures.” He takes the chains out of the cupboard under the sink.

John follows him. “A straight-jacket?”

“And this goes around the neck.” D’avin dangles the restraints.

“Is this a fetish thing for you?” John tries on the dog collar. “I take back everything I ever said about you being bland.”

“I’m deadly serious, Johnny. You know the signs and you know bright light will stop me. This’ll hold me ‘til you find a way—”

“We're not chaining you up on the off-chance Bad-D'avin pops in for tea and murder scones.”

“Still,” says D’avin, putting the stuff away, “I can’t take the chance.”

“When were you even gonna tell me about this?”

“When it came up in casual conversation.” D'avin shrugs. “Hey, pass the salt, and by the way, I have a full set of bondage gear under the kitchen sink.”

John waves a vague hand in the direction of the cupboard. “What if Dutch finds it? You know she’ll be pissed you didn't discuss it with her.”

“Why would she ever look in there? We don't even keep booze in it.”

“Good point. Okay, right, so we minimise the risk.” John picks up an apple from the fruit bowl and starts juggling it idly from hand to hand. “You can't afford to expose yourself by doing magic pony tricks. No more wraith-walking. No more explode-y heads, ‘til we know what she knows. We only lost a few people, think of the toll if you—”

“Anyway, I’m not our biggest problem right now,” D’avin says, reclaiming his spot at the table. He doesn't want to think about the deaths that may or may not be his fault. “Dutch is completely off the rails since… well, you know. What are the odds of accidentally killing the one person that might be able to help us?”

 _“Fifty-six thousand to one,”_   Lucy interjects.

“Lucy,” says John, “turn off ambient listening mode.” She ignores him, so he tries again. “Lucy, I know you can hear me, girl.”

_“Turning off ambient listening mode now.”_

“How do we convince her it wasn’t her fault,” says D’avin, gesticulating at the table, “that she was just acting out Khlyen’s programming?”

“Maybe she did us all a favour.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look, just because Grey wasn’t Hullen,” says John, finally biting into the apple and the rest of his words coming out apple-y, “doesn’t mean she was one of the good guys. It's not the crust, it's the filling. The cleaner they look, the more dirt’s under the rug.”

“Gonna need something a little more concrete than mixed metaphors, Johnny. Digging around for shit with little consequence to the war effort isn’t gonna—”

“Make me feel better about stabbing someone in the liver?” says Dutch.

“Didn’t hear you come aboard.” D’avin turns to her. Her hair is tangled and her make-up is smudged black around the eyes. “Where've you been?”

Dutch sniffs around the table, one of John’s hoodies covering her hands. “What are we drinking?”

“Umbrage,” says D’avin.

“Freshly squeezed from the grapes of wrath,” says John.

“Smells cagey to me,” Dutch says, reaching for the top shelf before pouring a tot of hokk into each of their glasses. “There. All better. What are you doing up anyway?”

“Indulging in a little detective work,” says John.

“Ugh. Don't talk shop,” Dutch says, holding up a hand and taking a swig from the hokk bottle. “I just want to forget.” She flops down on her stomach on the sofa, boots still on, and closes her eyes into the cushion. “I’ll have that foot rub now,” she says, voice muffled.

“Rock-paper-scissors?” John looks at D’avin.

“Now, Johnny,” Dutch says into the sofa, “or I will kill you with the rock and the scissors and then hide your body in the roll of paper.”

“That’s a little,” John says, “aggressive.” He gives D’avin a look. _Is she drunk already?_

D’avin shrugs. _I don’t know._

“I know,” John changes tac and his eyes light up, “why don’t we all watch a trashy movie, like the good old days?”

“The good old days?” Dutch says cynically from the sofa.

D’avin hovers between her and the dining table, glass in hand.

“Lucy, play—” John hesitates, looking in the back of his brain, “play _Scream-Slaver Part 9: Alien Boogaloo!”_

“Never trust a movie with an exclamation mark in the title,” D’avin says as John pulls him down to sit beside a groggy Dutch on the sofa, “in fact, don’t trust exclamation marks, period.”

“Oh, very droll,” says Dutch, “can we get on with the torture now?”

“I’ll have you know this is a classic,” John says, “it’s about a woman who worked for this company her whole life then they erased her memory back to the start, and it turns out she was a child when they recruited her, and now she wants her mom.”

“Are you _trying_ to trigger me?” says D’avin.

“Give me that.” John snatches a cushion out from behind him and places it in his lap for Dutch’s feet, pulling off her boots.

“If either of you get a boner I’m leaving,” D’avin warns, as Dutch clings to his bicep like her own personal cuddle toy.

“Huh,” she says, looking at them both, “it’s like a sandwich, and you two are the bread.”

“I’m not even gonna point out the sexual connotations of what you just said,” says John.

“Ew, Johnny,” say Dutch and D’avin in unison.

“What?” He stops kneading Dutch’s feet. “You’re the one who started talking about boners.”

“You’re the one who wanted to watch this crap,” says D’avin, “shut up and concentrate.” It is incredibly low budget, yet with none of the charm of _Hot Robot_. Very soon he is yawning. He rouses himself after no time at all. “That is not my mongoose,” he blinks. “What?” The movie is half way through act two and he has no idea what’s happened since he nodded off. 

“What was that?” says Dutch.

“You just won me fifty joy,” John says. 

“What did we say we were going to call him?” smirks Dutch. “Sleepy? Grumpy?”

“Elderly,” says John.

“Ha ha. You’ve had your fun.” D’avin drains his glass and takes it back to the galley. “I really do need to go back to bed now, though. Big day tomorrow.”

“Want me to tuck you in?” John pouts.

“Now you’re killing the mood.” D'avin tries to leave but turns back again and leans in the doorway for a while, smiling to himself even though recent events weigh heavily in his heart. They haven’t noticed he’s watching them, play-fighting on the sofa. Johnny is feeding Dutch chocolate and in return she is playing with his hair and poking him in the cheek to provoke a reaction.

For a moment, everything is as it should be. Everything is going to be alright.

იტი

It’s like the whole damn universe is crashing down and he’s in there polishing boots. It doesn’t make any sense.

Maybe she should just say something.

Nah, it’s just the alcohol talking, Dutch thinks, taking another gulp of hokk and watching him prepare at the coffee table. He’s clean shaven and has combed his hair differently. She doesn’t like it. He looks weird; younger, yet somehow older, more serious. Un-D’avin-ish. It had to happen sooner or later. The soldier is putting in a special appearance because funerals and shit.

Actually it is kinda… sexy. Really sexy. Another slug of hokk goes into the mug.  _Why shouldn’t you have a little hope,_ says the alcohol, _why shouldn’t you have a little something for yourself?_

Well, I am the queen. _Too right, you're the goddamn Queen._

She has that licentious feeling again, out of control. Months of being sensible and keeping her appetite under control and terrible shags with guys she can’t even remember, and for what? He knows what she likes and he’s right here. There has to be something to make her feel better besides drinking herself into an early grave. Something to take away the flashes of knife sinking into innocent flesh. Someone who knows how it feels.

Shit, she thinks, screw it, she’s just going to tell him what she wants. “Virgins don't prep this much for wedding nights, D'av. It's morbid.”

“It's not morbid.” He turns back to the boots. “It's ritual. Everything important deserves a ritual.”

She pours him one, because misery loves company, but he doesn’t want it, so—waste not, want not—she tips it into hers.

He’s droning on about something, ironing, probably, but what she’s really thinking is how futile all of this is, and don’t you dare say anything about my drinking, Jaqobis, or all bets are off. And he thinks they died because of the Hullen, not because of her, _well the joke's on him, darling, because you’re a murderer_ , says Alcohol, and Banyon wasn’t a mistake because she doesn’t get to make those any more. Not with these stakes.

“Well, what do you need to make it through the day, then?” says D’avin, abandoning the boots and taking her precious glass away. “And don't say more alcohol.”

Damn. He went there. “I need to know what's on the other side. Do we win? Was it worth it?”

He pats the sofa so she’ll sit down. “You're having doubts.”

She sits, can’t look at him because he’s right. “I'm having doubts.”

“Well, knock it off,” he growls, and she looks him right in the eyes, “because we won't win, and it won't be worth it if we fall apart now.”

Because apparently, they deserve better than that from us. From her.

Is this seriously supposed to be a pep-talk? “Tough love is supposed to have some actual love in it, you know.”

Oops. She said the L-word.

“Sorry,” he smiles, embarrassed almost, and it’s beautiful because he so rarely smiles these days, “Soldier D'avin is kind of a dick.”

“No, I needed that,” she nods, “you're right, just don't tell Johnny that I'm scared, Okay?”

“Tap my heart. You know I never judge you. It's kind of our deal.”

His eyes crinkle at the corners and she tries to see what he sees, reflected there. She has to somehow be this great leader that everyone needs, get the money from the Qreshis, deliver a speech, and get through the day without getting hammered and falling down, when she's not even sure she should have started this war in the first place. And he’s the only one giving a little grace. Now it’s not a question of putting her head under the water.

She.

Is.

Actually.

Drowning.

And without really thinking her lips are on his and she’s tasting coffee and toothpaste and whatever she’s doing is not being reciprocated and he’s not into it and—oh, gods—he is so totally not into it.

“Whoa.” D’avin takes her by the shoulders and pushes her away, frozen in shock.

“Whoa?”

“Dutch, I—”

“No, no, forget it.” _Just pretend it never happened_ , says Alcohol/Yala/Out-of-Control-Dutch. “Didn't even happen.”

Didn't _actually_   happen.

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Johnny doesn't relish handing Louella over to the authorities. Never was one for schadenfreude. She looks back at him as they take her away in cuffs—cuff, singular, for they have removed her prosthetic. It is a look not of hatred, but of fear. Almost a plea for mercy. But the deed is done; he cannot back out of it now. This event horizon means he will be dragged into bearing witness against one of the Nine. Exposure he never wanted.

He can't help thinking that if Pawter were here she would have done the wrong thing, ran away with her sister even though they didn't have the most sisterly of bonds. But then, if Pawter were here, they wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.

Every day it feels more like they're in deep kimchee and the cavalry ain't comin', and now he has to deal with this Dutch and D'av situation as well.

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Trees, here we go again, Dutch thinks as John sits beside her in the Rack infirmary waiting area. “Not in the mood.” She stares morosely ahead. She has finally removed the last traces of Seyah Melek from under her finger nails, but somehow she still feels dirty.

“No, I know,” says John lightly, jiggling a knee, “just wanted to say, not sure what’s going on between you two, but I’m fairly sure sticking your tongue down my brother’s throat isn’t the answer to all your problems.”

“So, he told you it wasn’t his fault.” Dutch closes her eyes as the muffled sounds of a laparoscopy emanate from the doctor’s office.

“Should I be worried?” John looks at his feet. “’Cause you know my loyalty’s to you, but I can’t have you breaking his heart either.”

“It was just a massive error of judgement. I do make mistakes sometimes, you know.”

“Yeah, I know. And part of growing is admitting it. So, well done you, for—”

“Putting up with your condescending attitude?” She punches him slowly, playfully, on the arm.

“Yeah, that,” he laughs. But then he looks at her sideways. “Did anything—”

“Happen while you were away?” It's kind of baiting him. Baiting him because she knows he won't push back and he'll forgive her anything. Anything. Except that. “Because that's what you haven't been saying since you got back, but now, because of this morning, you feel like you can—”

“Dutch, _did_ anything happen while I was away?”

“Oh, come on. A lady never kiss-and-tells—”

“’Cause I wouldn’t blame you. I know you—”

“Johnny,” she lays a hand on his arm, “nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. He wouldn’t hear of it. We made a pact.”

“You two’ve been sparring all day. Did you—”

Who the hells does he think he is? And this is John recovering somewhat from the fear that they will self destruct. He's not jealous, she reminds herself. His eyes flash with passionate... friendship? Ugh, how she detests the word. It cannot accurately describe them, describe him. He is hers. He is all. He is honey, wild and sweet. “Apologise? No.”

“A lady never apologises, right?”

“Wrong. Promise I’ll talk to him.”

“Pinky swear?” 

“Pinky swear.”

“But you know, it’s what you don’t say that matters more.” He looks at her meaningfully, getting up to leave.

“Wait.” She pulls him back down. “About earlier. I was kind of a bitch.”

“You're not a bitch. You’re just,” John takes a breath, “shit scared of losing.”

“I froze. People need better than that.”

“Just as well they weren’t looking at you, then. They were all looking at D’av, wondering why his head is so big.”

She emits a recalcitrant breath. “I just wanted to feel better.”

“I know.” He squeezes her hand.

“When I'm with you guys, the pain stops for just a little while.” She stops, leans against his side. “Johnny, did you ever feel like something’s missing?”

“Other than a couple mill in the bank and black-card entry to Caesar's Palace?” The look she gives him nudges his mind back on track. “No. Why?”

“All my life I’ve felt like something was just… wrong. Like—” she licks her lips for help. “Ever heard of a thing called womb twin survivors?”

“Can’t say that I have,” John frowns.

“It’s when people feel empty inside and they find out their brother or sister died.”

John sits there considering it for a moment. “I don’t know,” he says, “if Aneela’s your twin. All I know is, she wants to kill us and enslave the galaxy, and we have to stop her.”

“I don’t hate her, Johnny,” Dutch swallows, “I pity her.”

იტი

“So I told her you told me it wasn’t your fault,” John sits beside him on a bar stool, “just to test the water. And, turns out, you’re off the hook.”

“What am I supposed to say to that?” D’avin just stares at him. “Thank-you? Oh, thank you Johnny the Wise and Powerful, for lowering yourself to sort out the shit-scape that is my love-life?”

Johnny looks to either side of them. “Wanna dial down the sarcasm there, bro?”

D’avin rubs fatigue from his face. “Sorry, long day.”

“Y’think?”

“Actually I have been thinking and I’ve made a decision.” He looks over at Dutch, deep in conversation with Seyon Trus at one of the tables. “When this war is over, and she’s bagged her kill, I’m leaving.”

“No,” John says plainly.

“No?” D’avin frowns.

“I forbid you.”

“You forbid—” Gods, he needs to stop repeating everything John says out of sheer incredulity. “I don’t think you have that authority.”

“I have more reason than anyone to tell you when you should stay and fight and when you should run awa—”

“Don’t start this again, Johnny, it’s tired and it wants a divorce—”

“Shut up and listen. If you left, she’d be devastated.” He glances at Dutch, lowers his voice and leans in. “But you can never see that because you’re so busy thinking everyone would be better off without you. Well this shit needs to stop. I’m invoking the,” he falters, “baby brother dispensation.”

D’avin manages half a smile. Maybe he has been too rash. “It’s not like we wouldn’t see each other. I just wouldn’t be living with you. Breathing the same air twenty-four-seven, wouldn’t be stepping on your toes—her toes.”

John stares at the table, his face morphing through a dozen emotions. It’s like he’s fifteen again. “Don’t leave her. She needs you. I need you.”

But John doesn’t know how badly this morning affected him. It was the exact worst thing to happen after that dream. It’s fading now, but it scared him deeply. How can anyone be expected to work under these conditions? It’s tolerable for the sake of an interstellar conflict, but untenable in peace-time.

He gives in to the obvious emotional blackmail, like he always does. If he ever does have kids, they’re gonna have him wrapped around their little fingers. “Okay. Johnny. You win. I wasn’t thinking. It was just my instincts kicking in. I’ll feel differently in the morning.” John still refuses to look at him. “Do you need a hug?”

“That would be nice,” says John, “only you smell of sauerkraut.”

“Gonna do it anyway.” They both get up and hug it out for a long time until D’avin gives him a thump on the back, his cue to let go.

“I’m not gonna tell her about our little conversation,” says John, holding him at arm’s length, “but if you show any signs of bolting, I will shoot you.”

“Message received and understood,” says D’avin. “Hey, do you remember—”

“Yeah?”

“Do you remember the last time you invoked the dispensation?”

“The sandwich incident?”

“The sandwich was present at the incident,” D’avin begins with a grin and John chimes in for the last part, “but the sandwich was not the focus of the incident!”

It is at this point that John decides to get up on the bar and address the crowd. D’avin thinks that maybe he’d forget his problems in the arms of one of those premium sexers he speaks of, that it's time to put an end to the so-called dry-spell, but he can never quite get over the feeling that they're only listening to a client's woes because they're getting paid. The only other option is not talking at all during sex, which is equally as awkward. It's a no win situation. No, better a friend upon which to unload one's troubles and to trouble with one's load.

Dutch comes over.

“I'll take that drink now,” he says.

“Bar's closed,” she says curtly.

“Can we talk about this morning like normal human adults?” he says and she gives him that look, “Okay, like pretend human adults?”

“Fine,” she says, reluctantly. “Not here. Outside.”

“Great. I'll get some hooch.”

“Make it a bottle.” She looks at him earnestly and he feels the faintest hope that maybe they can work this out after all. But what in the hells is he gonna say? Hey, I didn’t not want you to kiss me, but every night I dream that if you do you’ll die?

He gets them a bottle on auto, follows her outside, still practicing how he’ll approach this, the most awkward of conversations. But she's not there.

“Dutch?” he says, “Dutch?” Damn. He wanders back in, looking and feeling lost. When he enters the bar, John is still talking to Alvis.

“I'm not mad at Louella,” he says, “I understand wanting vengeance as much as anyone.”

“But?” says Alvis.

“I don't know. I still want to punish Delle Seyah, but the only true vengeance would be for her to feel my pain. But she will never love, or be loved by anyone enough for that to happen.”

This is slightly worrying. D’avin makes a mental note to ask Monkpants to keep an eye on John.

“Your brother.” Alvis finally notices him and nudges John.

“What happened?” John looks up with concern.

“I just got.” D’avin gestures with open hands. “Stood up. That never happens.”

“Weren’t you two gonna—” John starts and Alvis looks at him, rapidly catching up with why the two of them hadn’t been communicating effectively in the elevator.

“Yeah,” says D’avin, “but she’s gone.”

“Go after her,” John urges.

“Whatever it is, it’s more important than me.” D’avin looks at Alvis. Well, at least they know who she’s not with. He turns. “I have to see a… thing about a… thing.” He wanders out of the Royale and back into the street.

It is dank, sweaty, un-fragrant with stale food. The total opposite of Leith.

“Ah, the sweet, sweet air of Old-Town at night.” Pree is at his side, hands on hips.

“Can't a guy just wallow in solitude?” D'avin says from the wall beside the door. From this vantage point he can see who's going in and out without being seen, but Pree knows his clientele. There is no hiding.

“Because that's what you really want, isn't it?”

“Yes. No. Not really. Was a time I thought as much.”

“With war on the horizon, s'not surprising people's thoughts would turn to,” Pree narrows his beautiful khol-lined eyes, taking in the night, “not being alone.”

“I’ll drink to that,” says D’avin, holding the precious bottle aloft.

“Where did you get that?” Pree glares at him.

“Um, from your secret stash that you keep in the ammo box in the fridge.”

“Give.” Pree swoops it out of his hand. “How’d you get the combination anyway?”

“Hey,” D’avin scowls, empty handed, “I was gonna pay you for that.”

“Where’s the lady of the hour?” Pree says. “Did she get the funding? Why are you standing out here all whiney-vaginey?”

“I don’t know. I’m not her keeper. She just does whatever the hells she wants whenever she wants and doesn’t feel like she has to be accountable to anyone, or even, you know, let anyone else in on her plans out of common courtesy, or even cares how any one else feels about anything, ever. What?”

“Sweetie,” Pree rests a hand on his shoulder, at once concerned for him and apparently relishing the idea of gossip, “what happened today?”

“Nothing.” D’avin can’t look at him. He's just so bloody smug.

“Yeah, sure sounds like nothing,” Pree scoffs.

“She might’ve—” D’avin blinks. “Kissed me.” Pree stifles a snort of laughter. “Oh, fantastic, great, thanks,” D'avin continues, “glad my pain brings you such glee.”

Pree’s smugness is broken only slightly by what he thinks might be pity. “Oh dear,” he says, “you really don’t know, do you?”

“Don’t know what?”

“Stop it.”

“Stop what?” D’avin says.

“Stop hiding.”

“I’m not hiding behind excuses.”

“Not excuses,” says Pree, “choices. Pretending you haven’t been low-key obsessed since the moment she just happened to fall into your bed back along.”

“Hey, that’s not fair—”

“Actually,” Pree interrupts, “since the first moment you laid eyes on her.”

Actually, he thinks, it wasn't first sight, it was first fight. In the corridor that first mission on Qresh. Up until that point he considered her someone to keep at arms length, someone who couldn't be trusted. After all, she'd somehow managed to tame his brother. Very suspicious, like a sorcerer or a snake charmer. But when he saw her slam those guards up against the wall like it was nothing, then, then he got interested. Who is she and _how_ can she be?

The truth hits him like a freight train, tearing apart the carefully constructed web of delusion that had been his only defence.

“Holy shit.” D’avin stares straight ahead. Then swallows. “I thought this was just a guy-fails-to-keep-things-platonic-with-his-business-partner thing, but it's real, isn't it?”

“Uh, huh,” says Pree.

“How long has this been going on?” D’avin frowns.

“Ooh, I'd say,” says Pree, “long enough.”

“I have feelings for her?”

“I'd say.”

“Why haven't I acted on it?”

“We, uh, haven’t been able to figure that one out.”

“How is this going to affect our working relationship?” Suddenly the tar-macadam seems ever-so interesting. “And the war? What about the war?”

“Well,” Pree leans back on the Royale's wall, putting one foot on it to make a triangle with this skirt, “that’s the thing about wars, sweetie. No-one’s thinking about the millions that could die; they’re all thinking about that one person.”

D'avin thinks about this, while Pree watches him in concern. Give her something no-one else can, that’s what Liam Jelco said, and he’d dismissed it at the time. Who in their right mind would listen to life advice from that shit-bag? More to the point, who in their right mind would trade casual sex for a meaningful relationship? Shit. There’s no going back. He’s self-aware now. It’s not just a pre-contemplative phase; he’s fully contemplative of this ass-hole-rific crap-shankle, thank-you-very-much and good-night. It just wasn't his dick he was thinking of giving her. “It’s completely selfish of course.”

“Completely selfish,” agrees Pree.

“The timing is awful.”

“Absolutely terrible.”

“Why did I think I could get away with this?” he says, but Pree just shrugs. He’s so stoic, it’s infuriating. “Shit.” He says again. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. Do you think she—no, that’s stupid. Of course she doesn’t—”

“D’avin, cutie-pie,” Pree says gently, “why do you think she tried to kiss you?”

D’avin looks up, already coming out of the contemplative phase and into sheer terror. “If that’s what she wants, then I’ll obligingly seduce her, of course.”

Pree sighs and moves off. “I think my work here is done.”

იტი

D’avin knows exactly how it will end, but he goes anyway, dithers back and forth before catching the last transport to Leith. He’s already calculated every possible outcome in his mind, but the coin still lands heads up every time.

He sits in Gina’s waiting room with a captured cricket and strikes up stilted conversation with the clients on either side of him; a farmer with a bandaged border collie on the right, and a spindly young woman with a pet hedgehog on the left. “Doesn’t that get prickly?” he asks.

“Nah,” says the young woman, holding it up to is face, “I don’ mind. S'worth the pain.”

Gina comes out of surgery and grins broadly when she sees him, but she doesn’t stop to talk to him until all the other patients are gone.

“Who have we here?” She takes the coffee can with punched holes in the lid.

“Found him wandering around outside,” says D'avin.

Gina opens the can. “What ails ya, little fella?”

“Well, he said he’s feeling a little under the weather.”

“I see.” Gina puts her hand in the can to try and get the cricket out, but it hops away. “Looks to me like a serious case of hypochondria by proxy.”

“That bad?” D’avin grimaces. “What’s the prognosis?”

“He’ll live, but his owner could probably use a little pick-me-up.” And laughing, she takes his hands and places them on her ass, bringing him down to perfect kissing level.

“Oh, gods.” He lifts her and deposits her on her desk, paperwork and samples of cat shampoo scattering. He doesn’t mean to come across as so ravenous, but once they connect—

“Dog hair—” Gina gasps, coming up for air as he ravishes her neck.

“Don’t care.”

იტი

“Well, that was interesting.” Gina pulls on an embroidered silk robe and leaves him exhausted in the sprawling bed.

“Interesting good?” He runs his fingers through one of her fur rugs.

“Don't push it.” She makes her way to the small kitchen and begins picking at something in the fridge, tossing items into a pan, seemingly at random. “But this,” she picks up the title deeds from the bench while still stirring with one hand, “this is a good investment.”

“You really think so?” He’s only half paying attention, surreptitiously checking his PDD for messages.

“As long as you plant hokk first, nitrogenates the soil if it’s been lying fallow for years.” She waves a spoon at him, does he want something?

He pats his stomach and shakes his head. “I have to be somewhere important in a few hours.”

She comes over and flumps down on the covers with a sloppy sandwich and a drink, eliciting an arc of concern from his brow. “Taste it,” she says, proffering the mug, “it’s good.”

“Do you always eat in bed?” He samples it gingerly. Holy-mother-of-all-that-is-sacred, it’s the richest cocoa that he’s ever tasted.

“Only with the right company,” Gina laughs, enjoying his surprise.

“You’re gonna have to show me how to make that.”

“Maybe I will, now that we might be neighbours.” Her dark eyes glow mischievously in the lamp-light and the part of him that wants to stay starts a battle with the rational.

He looks away. “Had to sign in blood in front of the magistrates lined up like a coven of witches baying for flesh.”

Gina laughs again, sucking her spoon. “I know exactly what you mean.”

“One of them wanted to know how an itinerant killjoy can afford land on Leith. I told her to read the RAC accords. Shouldn’t they know the fine print in their own constitution?”

“What a bitch.”

“I know, right? Anyway, the mayor was in the office that day and she came to my rescue.”

“You know the mayor?”

“They weren't having any of it, with me being a foreigner, but the worshipful madam mayor was all like 'don't you know who this man is?'.  She was pretty thankful for us for bringing her Vena home safely. I told them it was all in a day's work, so it all worked out in the end, but they forgot to give me my free copy of _Hen Husbandry Monthly_.”

“Or _What Chicken Magazine_?” Gina is in stitches, both from his recanting of the story and his uncanny impression of the mayor, exacerbated perhaps by the sugar. She sighs. “I haven’t had this much fun in ages.”

“It’s weird because I had nothing when I came here, you know.”

Gina turns serious, puts the cocoa mug away somewhere down on the floor. “I thought we agreed no personal details. That’s against the rules.”

“I know,” he says, “it takes away the thrill, the element of danger.”

“You’re not dangerous,” she says, slipping under the covers with him, and she feels cool against his skin, “you’re just…”

“I’m just a guy who can’t sleep without someone by my side. Which is a problem, because if I lose any more sleep, I'm gonna start making horrible mistakes.”

“It's not because you have no-one to share a bed with,” Gina says knowingly, “you can’t sleep because of guilt.”

He turns over and looks at her then. “Why do you say that?”

“It’s written all over you. It’s in everything you do. Listen, I—” she falters uncomfortably, “I came here with nothing, so I know how you feel, but you can’t let the fear of losing everything stop you grasping what lies ahead. I don’t mind being someone’s sexual surrogate, but you have to tell her sooner or later.”

He lets his head fall back on the pillows. Hard. It all makes sense now. He’s doing it again, sabotaging everything so he doesn’t have to stay and see if it works out. “Parallel Forty-Three,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“What?” She squints. “Are you even listening to me?”

“That’s where you’re from.”

“What of it?”

It was there all along, in all the clues he chose to ignore. Her diploma. The lack of personal effects. The willingness to go under the radar. “You’re a refugee.”

“Yeah,” she shrugs, wondering where this is going, “I came here on a skills vacuum ticket. So?”

“So, that was us. That was our guys.”

“Who’s—what? What are you talking about?” She sits up.

“The army, Gina.” He can’t look at her, but he knows what must be painted all over her face.

She exhales. And keeps on exhaling until there is nothing left. “You’re a Commonwealth soldier?”

“Don’t—”

“A fecking. _Commonwealth_. SOLDIER?” Her voice goes through him like a dagger and she scrambles out of the bed, pulling her robe around her, stands there with her back turned, breathing hard. He is frozen in the bed. Eventually a small sound escapes from her. “Tell me,” she sobs, “that you worked in supplies, the motor pool, anything—”

“Special recon.” He swallows. “Target acquisition.”

“Target—” she utters and her hand goes to her forehead like she’s going to faint. When she turns, her eyes are blazing. “My family _burned_.”

“Gina, I—” He begins to creep out of the bed, but she seems to change her mind, flinging his pants at him and looking around for something else to throw.

“You shouldn’t have come back here. You should never have come at all.”

“I have to tell you something before it's too late—”

“Get out!” she shrieks, pointing at the door.

“You’re right.” He clutches his bundled possessions to his groin in case her projectiles find a target, “and I will, but I need you to listen to me for just a second.”

“Argh,” she screams and the cocoa pan sails past his head, “get out of my life—”

“There’s something coming,” he attempts again, inching toward the door and trying to put on his pants while dodging books, “another war—”

“What the feck are you talking about?” She pauses, panting.

“You’re completely justified in kicking me out, but please, just listen. If shit gets serious, just run, hide and don’t look back. These monsters are ruthless—”

Gina sinks to the floor, the last book falling from her limp hand. “Why are you doing this to me? Is it some kind of sick joke?”

“No,” he says, heart flooding with remorse, “no, no, no. It’s just a coincidence. We weren’t to know.” He finally manages to button his fly and slowly comes back toward her.

“You said you were born to be a soldier and I didn’t think anything of it at the time,” her voice catches in her throat, “just ignored it because I didn’t want it to end.”

“Me too.”

“I really liked you, y’know,” she sniffs, looking at the carpet, much calmer now. “Now I never want to see you again.” 

“I know, and I always ruin everything.”

“I should have known better,” she says forlornly, as if only to herself, “it was only sex.”

“Only sex. But it was pretty good for a moment there.”

She doesn’t look at him, doesn’t move, doesn’t even seem to be breathing. Finally she looks up. “I think you’d better just leave now.”

The door doesn’t make a sound as he closes it behind him.


	10. Snowflakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dutch and D'avin finally get down to business, but the circumstances are less than ideal. Still, better late than never. Set during episode 3.09 'Reckoning Ball'.
> 
> Sexually explicit.
> 
> Soundtrack for this chapter is 'Like Real People Do', by Hozier.  
> Bonus track: The ten minute song is 'Woman', by City and Colour.  
> 

* * *

 

იტი

“Heavy is the crown  
and yet she wears it as if it was a feather.” –RH Sin

იტი

 

It was the touch on his arm that did it, she realises that now. And the award for best unequivocal sex invite goes to Reckoning Night’s Special Snowflake. She’s not falling in love. Only falling. Falling apart. There was never going to be a happy ending because this is not their story. They have to take what they can get while there’s still a chance.

Dutch breaks away from their kiss and looks up into the darkness. “Lucy, what in the world did you think we were going to do?”

_“The statistical likelihood of sexual intercourse after engaging in such behaviour is one hundred percent.”_

Dutch looks briefly at D’avin, but he has his lips pressed tightly together, suppressing a smile. “We kissed in here a while ago, and that didn’t end in sex.”

_“But you didn’t mean it then.”_

D’avin tips his head to the side, wrinkles his nose. “Well, she has a point.”

“There’s broken glass on every surface and Pip’s still around,” says Dutch.

“And she hasn’t asked me to yet.” D’avin looks at her.

“Lucy,” says Dutch thoughtfully, “lock Pip in the hold until I tell you otherwise.”

“What are you doing?” D’avin says.

“We’re going to your bed.”

He is helpless to control the spread of his smile.

 _“What if he raises a query?”_   says Lucy.

“Say there’s a malfunction due to the crash,” says Dutch, “use your imagination, make something up.”

 _“Am I your secret sex accomplice?”_   asks Lucy.

“Yes, I rather think you are,” she says, grabbing the front D’avin’s shirt. “Not a word about this to John.”

Lucy interrupts their escape to the sleeping quarters. “ _I estimate Pippin will have the lift door open in approximately ten minutes and thirteen seconds.”_

Dutch turns, still holding D’avin’s shirt. “Is that enough time to—”

“Seriously?” he says.

“I don’t have much time left,” she says, “what if this is my only chance?”

“Ten minutes?” he pouts in consideration. “I can do a lot for a woman in ten minutes. Twenty would be better.”

“Depends what she wants.”

“And what does she want?”

“She wants the D.” A smile begins to spread as they reach his room.

“If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.” She pushes him down onto the bed and he lets himself fall, props himself up on his elbows. She stands in front of him, nudging his knees apart so that she can get closer, and fixing him with a look that reads hunger, with just a touch of apprehension. She is virtually trembling with anticipation.

“Lucy,” says D'avin, throwing his shirt off over his head, “play something appropriate.”

A pulsing blues bass line starts as Dutch rips off her top and sinks down next to him on the mattress, thirteen seconds already wasted.

Tonight, it is all about them. Tonight is reckoning night.

იტი

_Minute 1_

D’avin pops her bra effortlessly to unleash firm, high breasts, but delays touching her with almost super-human restraint. Last time they did this they were animals, caught up in a moment of sorrow and passion, but this time it is more considered, less frantic. He has a plan. He is going to do this properly and she is going to love it.

He stands briefly to unbutton and tug off his pants. She does the same. They are both conscious of the need for haste, yet eager to feast upon the delights they merely sampled before.

_Minute 2_

He has her lie still on his bed and runs his fingers gently all over the taut skin of her stomach, her thighs, her neck. Flitting lightly from area to area, eliciting goose-bumps wherever they go. She watches him, fascinated, hungry for more, arching into his touch, but he only has eyes for the golden brown of her flesh, watching it respond to the pressure of his finger-tips. It is exquisite agony.

She is desperate, eager to skip ahead to the fulfilment of her desires, but he holds back, even as his own arousal swells. She reaches out for the firm muscles of his thighs, moving up to the goods, but he bats her hand away, making her yearn and squirm. She floods with dew, ready to receive him into her body, make them one.

_Minute 3_

The hands stop playing over her abdomen and progress to more erotic areas, exploring her breasts, cupping and kneading, rolling her nipples the way she likes. She gasps, overwhelmed in comparison with the relatively chaste massage she’s received up to now, and he gives her a smirk, pleased with himself.

But he’s not done yet. He kneels beside her and runs his hands slowly up the inside of her thighs, discovering the wetness that is just for him. They are rough and callused, but long and strong, beautiful hands in fact. She thinks he is beautiful, tense and sinewy, satisfyingly thick around the torso, with an elegant neck and jaw. She can’t help it now; she runs her hands up the sides of his face and into his hair, grasping on for dear life. She’s teetering so close to explosive pleasure, and she might just come from the motion of his hand. But he stops then, brings it up for her to see, glistening with her elixir. Impulsively she grabs it, closes her mouth around three fingers, sucks them clean.

He grins lasciviously. “What was that like?”

“Naughty.” She doesn’t have time to say anything else.

_Minute 4_

D’avin cups the back of her head, suddenly consuming her smile, and they kiss indecently, kneeling together on the mattress. It is the sweetest thing she has ever tasted. His hardness is pressed up against her hip and she longs to touch him, take the length into her once again. They stop only to breathe as the throbbing music fills the room.

He has an incredible dick. Okay, it’s not unicorn material, but then no-one’s is. It is, however, smooth, neatly circumcised and perfectly proportioned. As near as possible to an actual magic-pony wand. She takes the shaft in her hand, eyes closing in ecstasy, and pumps it gently, swelling the glans and tightening his balls, preparing for his next trick.

_Minute 5_

Time for his roaming hands to return to her clit. They rock together, and she lets her hair fall over her face, bites into his shoulder, his chest. She screws herself on his hand and he thrusts into hers, perfectly timed, and it’s almost too much. Her head rolls in intense pleasure/pain, holding back from the brink. She pushes him away then, afraid it will be over too quickly.

“Okay?” he checks.

 _Uh-huh,_ she nods. She normally has much more stamina than this. Whatever he’s doing, to get her there before the ten minutes are up, it is working. She goes in for another kiss. Heat rises up between them, carrying their combined scent.

_Minute 6_

D’avin stoops to worship her breasts, taking one in his mouth and clamping on to the nipple, his goddess, his source. She wants to push him off, make him suffer, make him beg. But she knows that’s not his kink. He’s not into domination or humiliation. His browser history tells her so. If she makes him beg for more, _please mistress_ , he’ll just walk away and won’t feel bad about it either.

But he has no idea what she’s thinking. His hand crawls, explores up, and turns her face to the side. Better for nuzzling, nibbling behind her ear, hot breath enticing her as his hand lowers, skimming her neck, her breasts and down, down, to where pleasure waits. She takes a little of her own juices—recklessly, that’s not part of the deal—and coats his tip, milking him even as he suckles upon her rock-hard tits.

_Minute 7_

Before long, his mouth begins to move down and all over her skin again, giving her a moment to regroup her senses, cool off. She’s reached that plateau now, engorged with longing, butterflies at the thought of her desires being fulfilled. His lips are so soft as he skims them lower and lower, teasing momentarily and changing direction, returning to her navel, the border of her tidily shorn cunt, making her wait, torturing her. Oh, it’s been so long, and she wants him so, so much. Wants to feel the hot spurt inside, the sticky pearls all over her sex. Why won’t he just give her what she wants? The bass swells and the beat drives her insane, their bodies undulating together in cruel harmony.

_Minute 8_

Finally his mouth is on her clit. She grasps the covers frantically, almost overcome.

“Oh, dear gods, what is that, your tongue?”

“That Okay?” He comes up for air.

“Don’t just look at me,” she urges, “carry on.” He obliges, alternating between circling her clit like a whirlwind, and sucking it like it’s a miniature dong. His stubble is scratchy, manly, glorious. She arches her back into the pillows as he begins to draw a climax out of her. “Stop.” She puts a hand on his head and clamps her thighs together. “If you carry on like that, it’s going to be over pretty soon.”

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing.” He kneels up between her legs, dick standing to attention. “Okay, then. Tell me what you want.”

_Minute 9_

“You. Inside me. Right now.” She grasps his shoulders and wrestles him onto the bed, throwing a leg over and mounting him aggressively.

“Wait,” he says, reaching for the night-stand and rubbering up. After a moment of checking they’re safe, he says, “Okay.”

“Sure you’re Okay?”

“Do it.”

She is ready for him, slick and swollen and sensitive. She re-positions carefully and lowers herself onto his sheathed dick. There is a delicious pop as he breaches her entrance. She gives a little whimper and pauses for breath. She loves this part. The moment when someone stops being an outsider, something 'other', and becomes part of a whole, locked in, if only for a moment. She twines their fingers together, gently rocking back and forth. “Still Okay?” she asks, checking him again.

“That feels amazing.”

They lock eyes as she rides him, first letting him in and then letting him slide out and rubbing her under-carriage along his length. She takes great pleasure in teasing him the way he tortured her for the last few minutes, tossing her hair and keeping his hands away from her breasts. She holds them down upon the pillow, beside his head, and screws him into the bed. Eventually he has had enough of her games and lifts her with great strength, barely withdrawing while they swap positions. For a fleeting second, he is holding her weight up above the sheets.

The music nears its crescendo.

_Minute 10_

“Turn over,” he says.

“What?”

“I said, turn over,” he says, “trust me.” Impatiently he slips out and flips her onto her front.

“What are you doing?” she says, while still offering him her ass.

He lowers her onto her stomach, straddles her left thigh and enters her from behind, a position designed for perfect coital alignment. Her eyes go wide in surprise and delight. She has never felt so full or so cared for in her life. D’avin’s hand goes to her collar-bone for grip, digging in slightly, re-adjusting and settling on her throat. She doesn’t stop him, enjoys the sensation of light asphyxiation as he starts to bang her properly. And it is, indeed, much like ploughing a field.

He gives a little flourish of the hips with every thrust. It’s thoughtful details like this that give him the edge over other men. He’s clearly been practicing. And she gets all the benefits. He pounds harder and harder, escalating to an almost savage frequency.

“You like that, don't you,” he says, more confirmation than question, and his voice is deep, like walking on gravel.

“Yes,” she whispers. “Harder.”

Their hips make full contact, slamming together in tandem until she reaches the summit, clutching the pillow, digging in her nails, almost shredding it in euphoria.

She never cries out.

Never—

Oh, gods—

She tips over the edge and electricity jolts, curls her toes, blinds her with white heat. She is the thunder and lightning. She is the beating heart. She is the rain. She doesn’t notice if he ejaculates, doesn’t care either—

They fall apart, wrecked in silence.

იტი

They lie in bed and listen for Pip, but nothing happens. He's obviously not as good a hacker as Lucy claims. They have been granted a temporary reprieve. A stay of execution, as they say.

For so long Dutch had been afraid of the consequences, the high cost of their ten minutes of bliss, the danger of building up expectation from all the times they didn't do it, possible disappointment. She's afraid that she only wants him because they're both hurting, and that the result will only be more hurt.

If she’s brutally honest, lying there following the shape of his fingers with her own—up one side and down the other, tracing a spiral idly on his palm—they probably weren't meant to be here. They're just forcing two wrong pieces of a puzzle together and bits are getting broken off in the process. Like two celestial bodies in a vacuum, gravity will always bring them together. But she knows it’s right because she is perfectly at peace.

She stretches like a cat and a satisfied smile spreads across her face. D’avin kisses her softly one last time, because he knows that what they just did doesn't come with the promise of more. She can still taste her musk on him.

“I didn’t mean it,” he says, trying to get a better look at her face even though she is too close to focus on, “what I said. You’re not selfish.”

“But I am the only one who can stop her,” she says, “my family started this and I have to finish it.”

“I know.” He brings her close and holds her tight around the middle, never wants to let go. His muscular arm lies across her stomach, hot and heavy, and if they really look, they can still make out the tiny traces of the scar formed when she tried to eviscerate herself in the mines. A bullet to the thigh. Burns. Shrapnel. Souvenirs. No matter what they do, battle-scars never really fade. They’re all just walking maps of iniquity. But it’s not the skin that matters; it’s the scars on their hearts.

They are indelibly printed on each other now.

იტი

“Uh, guys?” the young man's voice echoes. “Are you alright? I had a spot of bother with the - with the you know, finding my way around your ship.”

“Shit.” D'avin wrangles himself into his shirt and pants just in time to intersect him at the door, while Dutch ducks into the shower. He's careful not to stand too close to Pip or to make it too easy for him to see into the chamber of carnal disarray. Lucy intuitively slides his door closed behind him and it clips his elbow. “Hey,” he says, feigning normality, “we've been looking for you, what happened?”

“I got locked in the cargo hold,” he says and D'avin is sure he's looking at his unruly hair. If Pip picks up the aromas of sex on him, he is far too polite to say anything. For all Pip knows he's just been wanking furiously. “Still not sure how that happened.”

“How about a drink?” D'avin takes his arm and steers him toward the galley.

“You're not mad at me?” Pip stumbles.

D'avin shoves a glass into his hand and he unbalances onto the sofa. “Siddown.”

იტი

“Aw, he looks so peaceful.” Dutch looks over at Pip asleep on the sofa as she reaches for paraphernalia in the cupboards. “And nerdy. And annoying.”

“Kid’s been through a lot today.” D'avin nurses his glass of hokk. “Plus I got him drunk. Plus I might've slipped a tranq in there too.”

“I don't think he's cut out for this.” Dutch puts the items on a tray and carries it over to the dining table. Her hair is still wet from the shower.

“You recruited him.” D’avin makes room for her, but she decides to sit opposite, steam rising between them.

“He wanted to help. We need all the help we can get.”

“I'm still not comfortable with sending people to their deaths, you know.”

“Here.” She pours something into a small pot. “This'll help.”

“Tea?” D’avin raises one eyebrow.

“Not just any tea. Cire Lily Menander Tea from Keffree. I've been saving it for a special occasion.”

“Is this a special occasion?”

“I'd say earlier was pretty special.” She gives him a lopsided smile and he greets it with warmth and understanding. She goes back to the preparation. “We do this whenever someone arrives or departs. You boys have no idea how to make tea.”

“Ours is a milk-and-two-sugars kind of world,” he says.

“Well, this is tea done right.” Dutch pours liquid ceremoniously into one of the delicate porcelain cups, and as they watch, the dried flower unfolds its full petals and blooms into a spectrum of colours. She takes a sip and turns the cup a quarter clockwise. “We give thanks to the East,” she turns it again, “the West, to the rising and setting sun.” She holds his gaze the whole time, turning the cup and sipping twice more. “To the North, the South, the summer breeze and the winter rain, eto'panané achan'chinou, perod'jun.”

She passes the cup to him and he repeats the steps, the cup ridiculously tiny in his hands. It is beautiful, and sharing it is somehow more intimate even than sex. “Eto—” he attempts.

“Panané,” she says, smiling, and translates, “drink-hale, beloved, the time has come.” They share a gaze, bittersweet. The beauty of the mundane, moments she will no longer repeat. “His, uh, his name was Suli,” she says to break the silence.

This gets his attention. “Hmmm?”

“My husband.”

“Oh.”

“His Royal Highness Crown Prince Suliman Lal Dewar, Head of the Grand Parliament and Defender of the Inner Territories. And he was just as much a prisoner as me. If you were wondering.” He listens dutifully, and she knows he probably doesn’t really want to know whose wife he’s screwing. “We had this crazy plan to go travelling around the galaxy, but the powers that be had other ideas.”

“I'm so sorry.” It’s the right thing to say, but she can’t tell if he means it or not.

She continues regardless, refilling the tea-cup. “They weren't ready to be ruled by someone who had radical ideas about individual liberty.”

“So they had him assassinated and blamed it on you.”

“And that was the death of hope.” She smiles without humour. “I thought I was in love, but it turns out I was only in love with the idea of running away.”

“No one would blame you for that.”

“Khlyen told me that I had a family that sent me away and I foolishly thought that one day I would meet them, that I would get free and go back. But it was all lies. They weren’t real. The father, the mother, the sisters, the brothers. I had a picture of faces, but there was no emotion attached to it. Now we know why. Now I lie awake every night wondering what is real. If She is real. If I’m even the main character in my own life. Even after everything we've been through, I still don't know who I am.”

He searches her eyes after the outburst, formulates his answer very carefully. “There are—there are many versions of us all, Dutch. You’re not just one thing. It’s taken me this long to figure that out. There are versions of you that are still in there somewhere, and versions that are dead and gone, and you have to decide who you want to be in any given moment.”

“But you— _you_ have something, D'av. You have a past. You are real. You have a family and you have John. A chance at a normal life. And you don't get to walk away from that.”

“You have a family,” he says, teeth set in determination, “no matter what happens, we are your family.”

“Promise me,” she says, appealing with her eyes, “that if I fail, if she gets me first, you'll finish her.”

“I promise.” He swallows solemnly.

“No one comes out of this clean, do they?” She sighs. “If we kill each other, it’s just stalemate all over again.”

“Someone told me once that a draw is just quitting before you win.”

She stares at him a moment, wondering if he is serious, and then cracks a smile of recognition.

იტი

Later, D'avin excuses himself and takes a shower with all of John's water allocation, tries to bring himself off, but it's no good; he's too tired. That's been a problem lately—It's not getting it up, it's the finish line that's not forthcoming.

He looks at himself in the fogged-up mirror, sees a man he doesn't recognise. There are more than a couple of greys and his eyes are ringed with darkness. His head still hurts from the crash.

He tries to scrub the day from his face. “What the hells are you doing, Jaqobis?”

He tries to get a couple hours kip, make the most of this time before they are plunged back into the chaos and he must deal with Delle Seyah and her unborn kid.

Lying in bed with closed eyes he hears Dutch wandering Lucy's corridors singing  _Bury Me Under the Old Willow Tree_  and it is haunting, the peace of deciding to die. Mourning for the child she was. The children they all were. He knows she must be trailing her fingers along the walls of the ship her husband gave her as a wedding gift, knows better than to call back the refrain as they sometimes do in better days, or even go to her. This is her process.

 _Bury me under sweet blue violets,_  
_So he'll know where I am sleeping,_  
_And perhaps he'll weep for me._

His thoughts turn to Safiyeh, swinging in the calyptum tree in the harem courtyard, marked for death, and he understands. You cannot outrun it. It will find them all.

But that is where the universe is wrong. Dutch has defied all the odds to become not just an abberation, but something more real than any of them. She is everything. And he'll be damned if he's gonna let her lie down and accept fate. He will stand right in between them if necessary, take Aneela's bullets, take the knife.

He just has to figure out how.

He’d gone back to check on Gina a few days ago, maybe to explain, but she was gone. The windows were papered over and the kennels were empty. He could lie to himself that it wasn't because of him, that she had a better job offer, but he knows it likely was because of him. These things always end with a young woman crying, and he hates himself for that. But not Dutch. She doesn't cry because of him. He wipes her tears away and tends her wounds. It's never been like this before, not with Bonnie, not with Sabine, not with the hundreds of women in between. He's never really fallen in love.

But he's not falling in love. Just falling apart. This is not their story. There will be no happy endings.

They have to take what they can get.

იტი

_To be continued..._

იტი

* * *

**End Notes**

Big thank-you to all the fellow fans who have read and supported this endeavour! [Blondie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blondie), [n0rthern_l1ghts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/n0rthern_l1ghts), [shoesoffplease](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shoesoffplease), [MusingM](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusingM), [BereniceAndrea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BereniceAndrea), [Ruj](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruj), [thisdocumentisblank](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisdocumentisblank), [ouicertes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ouicertes), [Killjoys4life](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Killjoys4life), [shannyfish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shannyfish), [Taken_By_Mr_Mills](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taken_By_Mr_Mills), [sad_eyed_lady_of_the_low_lands](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sad_eyed_lady_of_the_low_lands), [funnyvalentine13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/funnyvalentine13) and all the anonymous readers. Your comments and suggestions always encourage and delight!

 

 **Appendix**  

**References and Easter Eggs**

Chapter 1

  * I always thought it was cute how Dutch begins episode 1.09 in D'avin's bed and ends the episode in exactly the same place, only under completely different circumstances.
  * I also wondered what Pawter was up to post 1.08.



Chapter 2

  * The orchids got into the story because I saw them in Lucy's galley in the show (although I can't remember which episode), and I always wondered how they got there and why they disappeared so quickly.
  * _Hot Robot Three: Journey to Boob Mountain_  is a SNL sketch.
  * _Cannibal Girls in the Avocado Jungle of Death_  actually is a real movie.
  * _Hot Guys Holding Plants Calendar_  is a mash up of  _@boyswithplants_  and  _Hot Guys Holding Baby Animals._
  * D'avin falling asleep during movies is something Luke mentioned during an interview (Geek-hard unless I'm very much mistaken). He said something along the lines of D'avin not having the attention span for movies and preferring shows like  _Ice Road Truckers_ ,  _Biggest Catch_  etc. So as far as I'm concerned, it's canon.



Chapter 3

  * "Strawberry Jacuzzi" comes from Keenan and Kel's  _Good-Burger_.
  * _Zombie High_  franchise comes to us courtesy of iZombie. Also John mentions zombie high-school movies in 'Schooled', (ep 2.04).



Chapter 4

  * The tentacle thing came about because of the conversation between Pip and D'avin at Manos's place in Utopia. "Like you aren't into some freaky shit, too," Pip says.



Chapter 5

  * Xanadu is obviously from the song, because laziness. And the themes also fit the fic so, eh.
  * Celestino means stars.



Chapter 6

  * Okay, so Captain Bucktooth is a thing. And so is the sexer from the Leithian harvest, but I thought what the hell, why not mix things up by having neither of our heroes sleep with the person they said they did, and the reality was a little different than they want the other to believe?



Chapter 7

  * Ashere's accent is Czech, or as close as I can get it. Just a little experiment that's helped with my linguistics module. If there are any Czech readers out there, please feel free to correct me. Also, the name Ashere comes from Beowulf.
  * The solitaire made out of watch faces is an actual object in the Museum of London.
  * Peaches are a regular motif in the show - they represent immortality. If someone's going to throw fruit, it should always be peaches.
  * Zoee Tree is the name of my bluetooth speaker, for some reason.
  * D'avin wasn't originally supposed to sleep with Gina, but once I created her, she kind of asserted herself and decided she wanted him. Go figure.
  * The ruins are based upon a real place hidden deep in the English countryside.



Chapter 8

  * Mansur means victorious.
  * Lucy's breakdown is inspired by Holly in Red-Dwarf.
  * I put the spiders in because I think the Lady got the idea to use them from D'avin's mind when he touched the necropolis altar pool.



Chapter 9

  * John's scripting palace is like Sherlock's mind palace, and of course, he goes full Sherlock in ep 4.02
  * Is it Rock Paper Scissors, or  _Rock Paper Dead?_
  * The movie plot John describes is actually the plot of Doctor Who episode 'The Bells of Saint John'.
  * The movie title I mashed up from half remembered 3am Horror Channel viewings while procrastinating CW assignments.



Chapter 10

  * The snippet of Kefferin is actually Mondoshawan. All credit goes to Besson et al. Again, laziness.



**About the Dreams**

I am the last person to use the old 'it was only a dream' trope - I find it cheesy - but in this case it is canonical. D'avin really does have trouble sleeping. (Unfortunately Lucy does not care about him enough to read him stories like she does to John. Aw.) We even get to see inside his crazy dreams in the show. Dutch's visions too. And Aneela. The only main character whose dreams we don't get to see is John. I wonder why this is? Back to the point. The dreams are not random. There are different elements in there, D'avin's subconscious fears, sure, about losing Dutch, about losing a limb. But there is more to it than that. *S4 SPOILERS* When Jaq reaches adolescence we find out that he can predict what is going to happen in the immediate future with an apparently high degree of accuracy. In my head-canon this is because his dad is the strategist. He's always figuring out what could, or should, happen. Jaq's powers are an extension of this. D'av's dreams are an incomplete version of this power, seeing only what has happened (the past, killing his squad), what he wants to happen, (Dutch saving him, kissing her), and what might happen, (going into the green, having two kids and living in the suburbs etc). This brings me to my second point. The sleep walking. In my fic, this is Khlyen testing him - although they never quite put two and two together - and not Aneela trying to get in his head as he theorises. And as we know, he does go exploring by remote control. This forces him to get the restraints, which are never used for their original purpose, but they do come in handy later to chain up Hull!John. The dream about the two masks is obviously a foreshadowing of season 4 in which D'avin wears a ski mask to rob Kravn, and Dutch dons the doula's mask in the birther camp.

**Work in progress**

An Illusion of Broken Stars

There was obviously not enough John in the last fic. Basically after spending ten gruelling chapters with Dutch and D'av, I'm exhausted. My next project is another ten-yer (lol) with neither of the others. Just a story about John trying to get over Pawter, meeting someone new (or are they?) and getting it wrong again.


End file.
